


Midwife Rising

by ImRobin



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Amputation, Blood and Gore, Citadel, Desert, F/M, Feminism, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Medical, Midwifery, Nasty Lizard King, New Citadel, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Mad Max: Fury Road, Poverty, Slow Burn, Starvation, Survival, The Wretched - Freeform, Theft, Violence, War Boy Culture, War Boys Showing Affection, Wasteland, Wasteland vs Citadel, Wretched, fury road - Freeform, implied canabalism, midwife
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-05-07 11:14:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 30
Words: 77,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14669934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImRobin/pseuds/ImRobin
Summary: A (probably) short story about a midwife in the Wasteland.





	1. Prologue

Regardless of the number of summers I had seen or the place, the sinewy, liberating texture of lizard has always transported me back to the early days of my youth. Whether traded in exchange for muddy aqua cola that had been dug up out of the ground under the cool watch of moonlight, or caught with sticky traps of tar that had been smuggled in from Gastown, incredible things like meat appeared nearly as often as clouds did in the desolate Wasteland sky. Entire moon cycles could pass before they came sailing past, looking like pearly fire-smoke and lingering in sight for a few hours before seemingly disappearing into the blue. Dreamers hoped for rain; practical folk turned their eyes back towards the sand.

Pa was a scavenger, and one night, after days of foodlessness, he traded his favourite necklace for a bundle of six little horned lizards. The necklace was a silvery chain that was strung through a trinket he had salvaged from a wreck- it was three-pronged, and looked something like a star. From the day he had brought it back, people started respecting him. For a time, people called him ‘Mercedes Man’, though I’d never quite known why.

That evening, me, Pa, and Maude feasted in secret, huddled in our tent in the dark. I was sitting in Maude’s lap, trying to avoid getting a rash from the sand on my bare ass, and together we sucked on the lizards’ tiny bones and spat their hard bits outside the tent flap. Everyone else around us was sleeping or dead. The winds were quiet. Pa’s eyes winked moistly in the relative dark; he was crying about his necklace, or his newly filled stomach. It was hard to read people after sunset.

When I had finished my meal, the first in over a week, I irritably clung to Maude’s tunic and buried my face into her exposed skin. When she had been pregnant, she had had plenty of milk to spare, and I never went hungry. For about 500 days after Maude miscarried, I ate until I was full from her; but after she and Pa took a long trading trip to Gastown, one I was too young to walk, the milk stopped coming. I got irritable and cranky from the hunger. I still burrowed close to her breasts. Perhaps a part of me thought that if I showed her that I cared enough, the food would return.

Maude humoured me and let me paw at her chest for a little while, but she pulled away when I tried to latch.

“I haven’t got any more of that, silly,” she said, and I remember Pa’s laughter in the night.

“You’re cleverer than to go picking before a there’s been a wreck, girly,” he said, and the sand shifted under his weight as he moved closer to pull me away from Maude.

“I’m still hungry,” I mourned, unusually complaintive as I settled into his chest. A silence settled around us, one that even Pa’s rasping breath did not completely fill. We were _all_ still hungry. In a way, Pa’s sacrifice really meant nothing, expect for a few more days of gut-wrenching hunger after that night, suffering before he scrounged together more food or Maude found work.

“No complaining or I stick you on the platform,” Pa finally said, sobered and steely. “The Immortan’ll feed you to his War Boys.”

I let out a little shriek, and Maude and Pa laughed dryly, probably because it wasn’t too far from the truth.

“She’d be sucking his gearstick before she’d be cooked. Too pretty to be food,” Maude said, coaxing her hand through the nest-like tangle of my hair.

I scoffed. “I’d bite off his gearstick and make _him_ suck it,” I snarled, my voice barely above a whisper in the hum of the dark.

Pa’s laughter woke the neighbours.

 

* * *

 

 

My mother died before I had even moved from the sling on her back to the smoldering ground. My earliest memories were of sensations, rather than visual manifestations of the people I knew best. The bite of the wind during storms; the aggressive screaming of the occasional wandering crow looking for sweeter waters; my own sweat on my tongue. My first experiences were that of work, but they did not perturb me. Such realities were common in the Wasteland.

As soon as I could walk, I was made to filter aqua cola with the other young children, who were usually too sick or young to do anything more than easy. Our job was sacred- if we didn’t strain the water well enough, the drink remained sandpaper-like in texture and ruined the throat. It was dangerous work, too. Every so often, when aqua cola was delivered from the Citadel, we were forced to move from tent to tent in order to avoid getting caught. It was dreadful stuff, aqua cola, made people mad. It was not uncommon to have to run for cover from fists and knees when aqua cola was concerned. Jubilation only came with the sound of screams. Life was good if you could hear cries that didn’t belong to you.

By the time I reached 2000 days, I was shine at running and even shinier at stealing. One had to be, when amongst the Wretched. When you were around the same people for long enough, they caught on to you, especially when you looked so different from them and you took so much. Standing out only made you easier to find when you did something wrong. Besides, it wasn’t exactly as if the Wretched had much to spare. When something went missing, all eyes fell on me.

Maude swiftly decided, after I had suffered a swollen jaw from a particularly nasty wretch called Jericho, that she would have to find a better use for me. I was still young, when I started working with her, but I was quick and eager to be useful. Maude was a baby-catcher for a living, and though the work was messy, it was nice to be able to have an excuse to stay out of the sun for a few hours.

There weren’t many babies born to the Wretched- folks weren’t much interested in fucking when they could barely scrounge together enough aqua cola to get through the days- but when they were, it wasn’t exactly a celebratory event. More mouths to feed were a hassle. Not many people wanted their pups; if they did, it was for eating, not for coddling. When women couldn’t pay us, they sometimes offered us their dead pups for food, but Maude had a moral compass about that sort of thing and never accepted, something I could never understand. At night, when I smelled meat in the air and heard jovial laughter, I got sour. Dead people were meat, too, and leaving them to the worms was nothing more than a devastating waste.

Regardless of what women did with them afterwards, I was not allowed to bargain until I had pulled my weight. Maude had me and two other women with her helping with the births, and they always got first pickings of whatever was gifted to them as payment. It made me bitter, but it made sense. All I really did was warm up petroleum jelly and cut the cord if Maude was too distracted. I usually got scraps, but I comforted myself in the thought that they were _my_ scraps. Little pieces of cloth or dried meat or sips of aqua cola made me beam.

When I hit 3000 days, I had begun actually delivering pups. I became as good as Maude by the time another 3000 days had passed. People started requesting me; I delivered their pups and ate their food. It was a good deal. I relished in my usefulness. Things stayed normal.

Then the Immortan fell. 


	2. Bird Bites

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My main character finally has a name!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, all. Upon some serious reflection on Rush's character and MR as a whole, I have decided that I will slowly be editing and rewriting the chapters of this story. Therefore, I officially welcome you to the new and improved version of MR... MR 2.0? I don't know what this is called. I do sincerely hope you enjoy it, though!

 

The sun hadn’t yet started to bake the earth when Maude and I rose from the sand to pay tribute. It was already a killer of a day, that much I could tell. It was disgusting, and the stars hadn’t even yet fully faded from the lightening sky. 

I tasted sand. The tarp beneath my ribs must have shifted in the night, because I could feel that my teeth and lips were coated in the nastiness of the dead ground. My bones ached, too. They always did. Rising every morning from the grave was bound to do something to your innards.  

I sat up wearily on my elbow and winced through the pains of sunrise. Time was always blurry and difficult to pin down when you were in pain, or sick, or hungry, or thirsty. Even pulling myself out of the hole in the ground I had called ‘mattress’ seemed a challenge, even though it was only a few inches deep.  

My body shook and seized up and the black tarp beneath me crackled as I clawed my way out of bed. I was sure I felt my nails breaking and peeling off as I grappled for security in the dirt, but I knew it was just my head playing tricks. A dehydrated head was ever the trickster. I needed some cola.  

Maude was nowhere to be found. Her stuff, a bag of dirty towels, bowls and other tools, was still at its spot by the tent flaps. It wasn’t yet prayer time, and I couldn’t hear her grumbling and emptying her bladder nearby.  The old broad had wandered off again.  

I coughed out a sigh past the sand in my throat and got to my feet, slowly. Grains of the pale dirt were rushing down my skirts. My whole left side was covered in sand. Why did everything have to start so badly on such a bitter morning?  

I shook out my hair and patted myself down. Pat, ouch. Pat,  _ouch_. My screaming muscles did not appreciate the shake down, but I didn’t give myself the option to cry about it. Work and the thought of cola kept me sane and working.  

I grabbed an empty pail and stepped outside. It was still cool enough to walk about without my boots.  

The world was still asleep, for the most part, but I could hear early mutterings and the sound of Wax heartily wailing for his morning meal.  

Wax was only a few months old, but he was a good boy. I saw him often. It wasn’t like there were many other live pups to care for, anyhow. If he was lucky, he’d get sent up the Lift before his mother ran out of milk or died. If he got too greedy, well... long pig dinner for his family, I suppose.  

Wax’s hungry cries were quieted soon enough, and the only sound left behind was Maude’s nearby huffing and puffing. Even the near-dark, I could find her. I knew where she was at. 

She was standing by the Lift, which still hadn’t fallen for the first time that day, forming a one-person line, chipped bowl clutched tightly in her boney hand. Even in her old age, her tall and lanky shape paced, hunched. Her hair was still in its night braid. She was shivering. 

I held my breath as I approached. She could get nasty, when she was like this.  

“...hey, Mumma,” I said. “Hungry?”  

She paused and glanced at me, licked her toothless lips. She was only half-there. But I knew she saw me.  

“...why’re they takin’ so fuckin’ long?! Did they forget?!  _We’re still down here!”_  

Maude shouted at the towers above her, eyes having gone fully milky and feral. They were reflective in the relative dark. They scared me.  

“Mum... Not sunrise yet. You’ll catch your death out here. _Please_. Let’s go back to our spot. We’ll come back later.” 

I tried to take her hand. I tried to be gentle... I got nothing but her wrath. 

She backhanded me solidly with her free hand, and with my body still so weak from sleep, I fell without much of an attempt at all. The pan I had taken with me, perhaps in hopes of showing her that no one had yet collected their portions, flew out of my hand and skidded loudly across the dirt. Her knuckles surely indented my face. _Fuck_. My poor Mumma. 

There was rabid silence for a few moments, and I didn’t see the moment her eyes filled with full recognition, but I heard her speak in her old voice.  

“...oh... Rushy... baby... sweetheart... oh...”  

She shuffled in her spot for a few moments, but soon, her hands were on my arms, and she slid her hand behind the back of my neck.  

She cradled my face to her collarbone and rocked me, apologizing, over and over. She stroked my sandy hair and kissed my scalp, rubbed my back until the tears I hadn’t realized had begun leaking out of me abruptly stopped.  

The sun warmed us at is rose, but I felt ugly-cold. I wanted to go home.  

Maude stayed behind to fetch rations, and I stumbled home alone, against the groggy crowds. All of them looked like Maude- old, scared, skinny, confused. People shoved at me when I touched them. Someone nasty grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked it just to see me fall. 

I was supposed to be respected. But with no children to be delivered, I was just a corpse to kick around. 

Furiosa was supposed to make things better. She promised. She gave us food and cola but things didn’t really change.  

Furiosa seemed nothing less than a terrifying legend, in the very beginning, as the Immortan was when he first came to rule. Rumors spread regarding her return from Valhalla on the Fury Road-  _stabbed in the lungs_ , they said,  _stopped breathing, saw the Gates and spat on the bars!_ The return of the Wives would have meant nothing, if it was the Immortan that had fetched them. They were just things, then. Even after they returned from the Wasteland, they were  _still_  things. They didn’t know anything about anything, and it bothered me something fierce to think that they got ownership over everything when all they managed to do was survive.  

I crawled back into the tent just before the sun began to burn. I wanted to go back to sleep, but I had morning prayers to do.  

I was cheating by performing the prayers inside, when I should have really been out, facing the rising sun. Hopefully, the Mother would accept my false prayers, today. I wasn’t feeling all too well. I didn’t want to risk sun stroke.  

 _Oh, Holy Mother, by the grace of Your goodness, protect me and the children of Man from a day of further destruction and misery. Save us from ourselves. Put food in our mouths and cola in our throats. Make our selfish hearts beat another day. We apologize for our sins. We apologize. We apologize. Live forever in your Sacred Lands and accept us when our times come. We apologize._  

Maude interrupted me mid-prayer with food. Delicious roasty food... I pretend-finished my prayers. I had surely apologized enough for my daily sins, hadn’t I? 

Maude was silent. She had a full plate of meat bits and crispy skin... she wouldn’t be comfortable eating that, but she knew it was my favorite.  

She took a seat across from me and wiped her salivating mouth with the back of her hand. This would be rough for her, I knew so.  

I took my spare pail from under the bowl of spoils, picked out the best-looking pieces of meat, and awkwardly began mashing them up for her between my soft fingers.  

“Y’don’t have t’do that, sweetheart,” Maude said, but I shook my head when she placed her dark hand over mine. 

“’s alright. I don’t mind.” 

I made up her meal for her, picked out the little bones, tossed out the suspicious bits. My usually clever fingers were clumsy. I didn’t have much experience with this type of meat. It must have been something other than lizard or snake... A little black tuft of fluff amid the barely cooked meat clued me into the origin of our breakfast. Crow. The hunters up in the War Towers were surely getting cocky. 

The discovery of the feather turned me off to the meal. Lately, I had less and less of an appetite, especially with so many curiosities coming down the Lift. Maybe they were lacing it... it was something Joe might have done.  

Maude tried to convince me to eat. Tried and tried and tried. But when I didn’t she just wrapped the meat up in a little length of spare cloth and tucked it into my work bag. 

“You goin’ to go up, today?” 

My stomach dropped. I knew that question was coming. It had been asked for weeks, now.  

 I rolled over towards her in the sand, huffing and fanning myself absently with the back of my hand. I was already irritated, especially with my empty stomach. 

“With no teeth, you sure know how to flap those fuckin’ lips, don’t y’?” I noted, and Maude’s shrill motor of a giggle coughed up her lungs.  

I hate that she laughed like that. I was trying to be nasty, but I suppose being so little compared to her never got my point across. I hated being so small.  

She bared her dark gums in a smile, her eyes disappearing behind the folds of her wrinkles. I think Maude might have been pretty, once; she had high cheekbones and thick hair, and she might have even had good teeth, too.  

She told so many stories about the Before Time, especially about her flings. She always talked about one man, a doctor. How she’d go out with him and wear her best clothes and shortest skirts. How it didn’t work out but how she always wished that it had. Yes, she  _must_ have been very beautiful. 

Now, though, in her old age, her hair was falling out; she drooled hard when she wasn’t paying attention. A real waste of aqua cola, I called it.  

“They’d take y’, y’know. M’sure you could give Organic a run for his money.” 

Maude’s Before-Time expressions always left me a little baffled. Money was gone, how could you  _run_ for it? I shook my head absently.  

“Whether or not you like 'em, he’s still  _there_ , isn’t he? The Wives would’ve gotten rid of 'em, if he didn’t pull his weight. Made’m maggot food ‘r something. Besides... I couldn’t leave. Y’know I couldn’t. Who’d watch ya?”    

A drop of saliva carved its way down Maude’s dark skin from the corner of her full, dry mouth. She closed her eyes and sighed ignoring my question. She was lost in thought. 

“I could go for maggots, right about now…” 

“You could _always_  go for maggots,” I said, smiling a little because, yeah, they did sound good, nice and juicy, especially compared to this nasty bird food. 

“’bet if you were the Citadel’s head baby-catcher, they’d feed you maggots every day. Crickets, too! You could send me some,” Maude said, slowly rising to her old knees. 

“You’d jus’ suck and suck on’m ‘til they get soft, what chompers have you got for insects? Someone’d steal them before you even got through a half-dozen,” I said, sitting up and offering her my shoulder to use as a crutch.  

I could feel the strong bones in her hands work to raise her up. Despite her aches and pains, that old engine of a woman still hummed with rusted life.  

“You’re soft,” she insisted. “You’d share.” 

I got up after her and moved in a lumbering crouch in the small interior of the patchwork tent, always counting, always checking. With only Maude and me left, there was more food and space, but fewer people on watch. I was always counting jerky strips and loose cloth and canteens like mad, almost as often as I counted missing fingers and toes on pups.  

“You should be the one goin’ up on the Lift,” I said. “They’d take care of the Big Momma Pup-Catcher. Well... better than  _I_ take care o’ ya, anyways.” 

Maude seemingly contemplated the thought for a moment, but she dismissed the idea with a blustering of her lips.  

“Nah, nah, gettin’ too shaky. Girls don’t like that, ‘less they’re gettin’ a good fucking. You’ve got the hands for this work, girly.” 

I turned my attention to my distracted hands, which were busily folding away some spare headscarves. The garden gloves I bore in the heat were cumbersome were nearby, but necessary- soft hands and short nails made for comfortable catches, or so Maude preached.  

I wiped my sweaty upper lip with my bare forearm. Soft hands were good for two things: midwifery and hand jobs. If I went up to the Citadel, I might be performing both.  

“…we’ve lived fine down here forever,” I reasoned, mindlessly tying my ratty hair up and out of my face with the aid of a length of red fabric, Maude’s favorite, the one I hardly ever took off.  

“How good can it be, up there,  _really_ ? Folks thought it was shine when the  Immortan  was around, and all they got from the deal was a bit of shade. Surely, with all the food the  Wives’re handin' out, there’ll be pups again,  _work_ again...” 

A gnarled hand yanked me firmly away from my busywork before I could even finish my thought. For such an old girl, Maude could _pull_ when she wanted too. The yellowy-whites of her eyes popped hard against her dark skin, and her tight kinks of long, white hair bounced into her face despite her having tied it back.  

“You listenin’ right, girly?!” she shouted, and I knew it wasn’t because of hearing loss; I cringed and struggled against her grip. She leaned in closer and I smelled the rot on her tongue. 

She wasn’t forgetting, now. She knew exactly what she was doing. She was scaring me on purpose. 

“If those lil’ girls up there can overthrow an entire Valhalla-damned empire with nothin’ more than a truck an’ a couple o’ guns, then  _you_ , you rusted  _bitch_ , can find a fuckin’ job in that there  _glorified_ _waterin'_ _hole_! Did you hear?!” 

My eyes began watering again. Maude always said I cried too much. I whimpered and tried to shove her hand away, but it just gave her incentive to dig in harder.  

“ _Fuck_ , yes!” I barked, my hands bearing hard against her hips and shoving her old body down into the sand.  

She crumpled like a pile of bones, her thin body crashing into a row of dry canteens, which clattered together in a storm of tin. I didn’t help her stand. I heard her get up and mutter something cryptically curse-like, but she left me in my peace. 

I didn’t like being violent with her, but in her stubbornly advancing age, she was getting less and less easy to reason with. Maude stifled me something horrid, with all her mothering, as if I was still at her tit. At almost 8500 days, her orders and scoldings were getting a wee bit too repetitive for my liking. 

I still didn’t want to go. I want my Mumma around. Could anyone blame me for wanting to stay close? Pa might have if he was still around but... well, he had been dead for a while. And I refused to listen to the likes of ghosts. 

I didn’t notice Maude coming up behind me and touching me, at first; the pungent scent of petroleum jelly hit my nostrils before her soft skin did. Her hands lovingly brushed the back of my head. 

“…you look like no better than tumbleweed with your hair like this. You wan’ m’ t’fix?” 

I wanted to huff and pull away, as I might have as a babe, but I simply didn’t respond. She took my silence as a yes.  

As she removed the band and refolded it to make the torn edges look a bit neater. Maude’s hands worked quickly, and before long, my entire head of stringy, brown-black hair had been tucked up and away from my face. The sheer tightness of the fabric band made my skin ache, but it felt nice, secure. I didn’t know what I looked like, but Maude always insisted I was prettier than her. I couldn’t be sure. Most things that might have been shiny once were rusted in the Wasteland. 

Her silky fingers squeezed my shoulders. I felt her lips kiss my cheek. 

“Come now. Gonna go see your Papa. Take your things.” 

I winced and rubbed my eyes.  

“But I don’t...” 

“I know ya don’t wanna go. No complainin’. Bring yer things.” 

I sat there for a few moments, waited for Maude to leave, expected her to come back when the heat got too bad... but when she didn’t, I groaned out loud and tugged on my sandy boots. Maude used to wear them, but her soles got so tough towards the end of her life that she considered trading them before deciding I needed them more. They were my favorite, with steel in the toe and everything; no laces were needed, I made them work with wrapping a length of twine around each ankle to keep them tight. Practical and quick, as Maude liked most things. 

While I rose up, I slung my medicine bag over my shoulder. I used to wear a utility belt, low on my hips, filled with all my bandages and jellies and soft wraps for the newborns, but they were often too easy to steal from for my taste. Though the bag was overall heavier and a drag to carry about, it was safer and harder to snatch off my back. The only remainder of my older pouches was a tiny pack that I strapped to my thigh. In there, my red ochre powder- useless, but pretty. My own personal war paint. 

I stumbled under the weight of my bag to meet Maude outside. The neighborhood was lively now, people were shouting and wandering about. People smiled more than they used to, with full bellies. It was almost pleasant, even though the scent of sweat was still present on the breeze. 

Maude didn’t bother packing up the tent or bringing valuables with her as she usually did. People were happy and eating. The risks were low. Besides, she and I both knew we wouldn’t be gone long. 

The Mother's Acre was close by, though some people just called it 'Cemetary'. It wasn't quite like anything was buried there except for ashes or clothing or personal belongings. Burying anything out here was a dangerous game to be playing. It would be scavenged by animals, or by desperate enough neighbors ready to eat around rot and share meat with flies. 

Maude was greeted by a handful of passersby as we slowly made our way through the alleys of tents. She was famous. Folks loved her.  

When they looked at me, they only subtly nodded or did nothing. I hadn’t delivered enough pups to be trusted, even though Wax’s birth had gone alright. They would need to trust me, though. Who else would be delivering pups, soon? 

The Mother's Acre was preserved in the shade between the eastern-most and middle towers. No bodies, no graves, just rocks with symbols carved on them. Those who could write in Before Time languages had full names; those who bothered to count days since the start of the End Times put birth and death dates. Most were drawings.  

The Mother's Acre only began to be put together after Joe’s death. Before that point, any sort of respectful remembrance of the dead was disrupted by his boy soldiers. Now... things were better and worse. At least Joe’s violence allowed for a nice excuse to forget the dead. 

Mercedes Man’s rock was small and pressed against a wall. Maude had carved in his name from Before. I had asked her to carve his symbol out- I couldn’t read- but she had refused. He had a lot of enemies. Maude probably just didn’t want his grave desecrated.  

A visitor was there with us, another old woman. She was curled around a rather large rock, with multiple lines of words. A family grave.  

I attempted to ignore her and kneel to start praying, to get this  _shit_ over with, but Maude caught me by the shoulder.  

“Hey! Lady!” she called almost hesitantly, but the woman didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe. 

Fuck. No, no, no. Not  _this_ morning.  

I stepped away from Maude to approach the woman. As I approached, the smell of her, a smell I recognized all too well, wafted over me.  

I gently shook her arm, but instead of getting yelled at, her body simply tipped towards me. 

Her eyes were completely glazed over, and as her head fell, flies and maggots poured out of her mouth and fell in a disgusting, writhing pile at my feet, like a thumping tumor. The remainder of saliva and blood dripped out of her mouth to coat them, like the terrible oils that had coated the bird meat earlier. The woman must have only been dead for a few hours, and no one was here looking for her. The maggots were still small, but they would get chubby soon. At least someone was making the best of their short life. 

“ _Oh, Mother_!” I hollered, stepping back and covering my eyes in disgust.  

The air was suddenly heavy and sour, and it made me nauseous. I bent over my knees and tried not to heave.  

Maude was praying behind me, for the dead woman. She would always be better than me. The Mother would have no problem taking her. 

We sat there for what seemed like hours, sweating until we shriveled and became jerky. 

I knew what Maude was going to say when she finally let out a sigh and slid her hands beneath my arms to help me up. 

"...the pup's crownin', girly. No stallin' now. Stick around here any longer... I'll be makin'  _you_ a stone marker." 

I sunk my teeth into my mouth and shook my head in disbelief. I wasn’t ready to go, but this was an undeniable sign. I had no choice. The Mother wanted me to go, lest I become just like the woman... rotting from the inside out. 

Maude tugged on my long skirts straight and touched my scarred face. She paved the marks with her thumb; one lining each cheekbone, another straight down my nose, the last a half moon above my upper lip. Pa had insisted, in life, that they were to keep me a little ugly. Ugliness was safe. Maude always joked that they had done nothing to help my case, but regardless, they still reminded me of my parentage.  

“You're goin’ t’blow them all away,” she said.  

“You could come. They’d find a use for you,” I said, but I knew it probably wasn’t true. Maude’s memory wasn’t great anymore, and though the New Citadel accepted most, she would hate taking up space. 

“Nah.” Her fingers traced my scars and made my skin glow gold. “You got your knife?” 

“‘Course I got my knife,” I sighed. 

“Then you’ll be okay.” She took her fingers away, leaving my tan skin cool from her touch. As she turned away and back towards my father’s grave, I thought I saw the shine of aqua cola in her eyes, but I ignored it. I didn’t want to cry any more than I had already done.  

“I’ll visit y’and Pa. Promise,” I insisted, joining her at the grave site and tracing the symbols that were supposed to represent Mercedes Man’s name, one that had died way before he had. 

Maude just chuckled and pat my back, just like she would when I was a child. She was gone again, back in thought. I was just a baby in her eyes, still.  

“Nah, Rush,” she said. “Y’won’t.”  


	3. Hail Mary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush makes a friend... sort of.

Maude had always insisted that I would amount to ‘great things’, though I believe those were her Before Time sentiments showing. ‘Great things’, she said, were meant for risk-takers. That’s how the Wives broke their chains; that’s how Furiosa made it to the top when she really should have stayed Imperator until she carked it.  

On the other hand, I knew risks left folks dead. Really, the Wives, Furiosa, they should have become scavenger food. One of the Wives never came back, that much I knew. _Joe’s favorite_. The one that started it all was the one never to return. 

Maude insisted I have a sand bath and trade my personal things for whatever supplies I could. I needed to look alright, she said, ‘first impressions are everything’. She also stuffed me full of whatever dried meat rations we had left, as if that meager food would grow me the inches I lacked and filled out my boney shape.  

As I ate, she attempted to find me something better to wear, even though we owned nothing but the clothes on our backs. Regardless, Maude huffed and dug through our piles of tools and scraps.  

“Surely, we’ve got somethin’... Can’t have y’goin’ up on the Lift, lookin’ the way y’do,” she grumbled. 

“I’m fine. They ain’t expectin’ much,” I said between bites of overly salted lizard.  

Maude shook her head and threw her things aside with a disinterested slap. Her empty hands turned to rub her face.  

“...I don’t want ‘em thinkin’ you’re street-walkin'.”  

“I’ll just tell ‘em I’m  _not_ , Maude, Mother almighty... There’re more deaf folks down here than up there.” 

Maude glanced my way, and bile rose in my throat.  

“Don’t be naïve, child. You’n I both know men don’t care‘bout nothin’ but their ilk. Keep your eyes open... Goodness, y’worry me when y’say things the way y’do. I raised ya t’be quicker... Talk means nothin’ up there.”  

While I fought to finish the rest of my meal, silence engulfing me, Maude moved to retrieve a bowl of mixed, muddy yellow ochre from our temporary altar on the ground. It had been our sacrifice to our Mother Goddess- a little aqua cola for good luck and prosperity.  

I watched the unmoving alter while Maude worked at painting my face. Maude always insisted on making a muddy statue of the Mother if we camped in one spot for over a few months. Of course, she wasn’t much of an artist, so the Mother was always strangely featureless, but her lumpy curves gave off the right idea. 

The Mother was beautiful, and perfect, and could exert her wrath on anyone she pleased, even non-believers. That was why Joe croaked. Hopefully, I would be able to keep her good favor. 

“Will y’watch yourself, girly? Keep that mouth shut and eat your fill?” Maude asked as she dipped her fingers in the pasty ochre, which required some cola but would have to do for now. 

“Mum, please,” I sighed. “I’m no pup. I’ll remember t’eat when I’m hungry.” 

Maude’s face fell slightly as she sat in front of me to paint my face, suddenly looking much older.  

“I-I know, sweetness...” she said, but she seemed unconvinced. Nothing could comfort a mother when a child was out of her arms. 

She forced a toothless smile rapidly when she noticed my staring, and promptly began smothering my face in ochre patterns. Yellow lines followed the hollows of my cheekbones, and from my personal red ochre supply, she covered the scar down my nose and formed a cross-shape on my forehead, which was supposed to be a Before Time symbol for healers. Finally, the mix of both, forming an orange color, swept across the middle of my bottom lip. 

Maude fondly looked at me as she cleaned her hands, and my chest swelled with too many feelings to count.  

I wouldn’t see her ever again. I knew that much. I kept my eyes open and tried not to cry in the time it took for her old legs to straighten out, for her to pull back the curtains, for her to wave me out of the tent. It was time for me to go.  

The Lift seemed a distant familiarity in my mind, though I recalled it more and more as I approached it. I had begun standing there for the last couple hundred days, waiting for rations, but I hadn’t properly ingested the terror I felt for it until I found myself walking towards it with the intention to get on it.  

Maude and I didn’t speak a word as we walked towards it, towards the line of unfortunate folks who seemed eager to leave the ground. It seemed the closer we got to the Lift, the more things changed. Tents grew larger and more spacious; folks seemed better fed; little green sprouts grew out of the boxes of deep brown dirt. I was so distracted that I didn’t notice the Lift coming down. 

The clang of the platform, now free of cars and War Boys, made me jump a little, but I retained my composure. No use looking mediocre on my first day up.  

The Lift Guards, despite having received their new instructions to  _not_ toss folks like corpses months ago, seemed uncomfortable with so many casually boarding what I assumed they thought was  _their_ territory. The Wretched around them, carrying goods or things to trade, didn’t even really notice the burly figures in black. It seemed those brave enough to hop onto the Lift had been tossed before. 

Beside me, a mother lifted her young pup onto the platform, but stayed on the ground. She was only about 900 days old, and though she was able to stand solidly enough without her mother’s help, the impressive tumor growing just above her right eyebrow was significantly obstructing her vision and causing her to hop nervously from foot to foot. 

The mother, who was missing an arm and had the nastiest case of gangrene I had ever seen, worryingly gazed between me and the pup.  

I knew what she was doing- sending her pup up, Old Citadel style, for the hope of something better. Pa nearly did it with me. 

Now Maude was sealing the deal.  

My mother looked down at me, then at the little child, then back at me. She shook her head harshly before firmly grabbing my chin and sticking a finger in my face. 

“Don’ let anyone jerk you around like a manual gearshift. You’re an auto-drive, yeah, girly?” 

I instinctively yanked my face away and nodded firmly. Don’t cry. Don’t  _cry_ , you fucking smeg, don’t you  _dare._  

“’Course. Shiniest auto-drive pup-catcher in the Wasteland, I am.” 

“Well, second to me, stupid. Don’t forget that.” 

“Shove it, rust-bucket.” 

It was all about numbers, in the Wasteland- how much water was left to drink, how many mouths there were to feed, how many bodies left to share or bury.  

Me, I was just another number, just like the little pup. It wasn’t my place to let the mother know that it was most probably the same up there, too.  

The Lift creaked to life, causing everyone on board to jerk forward violently. Beside me, the little one stumbled to her knees, but did not cry. A tough little thing, she was, she would be okay.  

Maude reached for me as I rose, and I clasped hands with her until a Lift Guard roughly smacked me on the arm and shook his head. Fine, then. I just nodded goodbye at Maude, and I could still see her when she turned around to hobble away. 

Despite not having ever been as high as I was in the air, I felt no vertigo. The breeze, though warm, felt nice against my face, and was slowly drying the thicker splotches of ochre on the curve of my nose. A little hand grabbed my skirts and pulled. Beside me, the little one sucked her thumb and absently swung her meager weight from left to right. I leaned over and, a little shyly, pat her malformed head. 

Though the sun blinded me, I insistently kept my eyes open; after all, I was appreciating the view that had blessed the eyes of a fallen god. 

Ironically enough, it was sand and flesh that first greeted me upon my first step off the Lift- those around me casually scraped their dirty feet on the stone floor, causing the stone entrance of the Third Tower to be positively riddled with peeled skin and pebbles. The sight made my stomach lurch, which unsettled me. I didn’t usually have the luxury to be squeamish. The little one at my side took initiative and followed suit, scraping the caked dirt off her little feet. She didn’t need to be instructed to follow orders; she was quick, despite her youth. 

I dropped low beside her in a crouch, trying initially to reach out and take her hand, but the people behind me in line groaned and snarled at me to move.  

Ahead of me, people seemed to be being sectioned off by a pair of beautiful, robust women, their forms overflowing with layers of fat. While they were both fully covered in proper work clothes, large pants and dress-like shirts, with their long hair pulled back out of their faces, nothing could hide their stunning forms. 

I had never seen anything like them. I was blushing as I was prodded towards them from the back, very suddenly unwilling to speak; instinctively, I grabbed the little girl by the collar of the shirt and half-dragged her towards the women. 

I was not fond of children. Newborn pups were simple- past the age of 400 days, they began to get too complicated and greedy. It was when they began talking that they truly became burdens. The girl who I was grasping seemed clever, though. I delighted in the pup-soft skin that I felt grazing my knuckles. 

I tried to smile at the voluptuous woman, but my attempt to be friendly was instantly turned down. She simply looked at me over a small, square, black stone in one hand and waved at me with a bit of white rock in her other hand.  

“Tradesman? Artisan? Fresh blood?” she asked, her voice severe and scratchy-like, nearly unused. 

I was too initially focused on her plump mouth to respond, though after she raised an eyebrow at me, I coughed and straightened my posture. 

“Fresh blood. Definitely fresh blood,” I said, and she scribbled something down on her stone. 

“Profession?” 

“Uh... midwife? I catch pups.”  

Another scribble. She then pointed to the child beside me. 

“She yours?”  

I furrowed my brows and shook my head. Clearly not. Every woman I had ever seen deliver a pup and live was at least twice my size.  

“No,” I said. “She’s some Wretch’s. Her ma done stuck her on the Lift and sent her up. Don’t know what to do with her.” 

The woman’s pretty face got suspicious, even though the little pup clearly looked nothing like me. I scoffed at her. How dare she think I had some stranger’s spawn? I dropped to one knee to firmly address the child. 

“Did your Ma tell y’why you’re here?” I asked, slowly and as concise as I could make it, staring at the larger woman.  

However, when my eyes finally turned to the child, they could not help but fall on her massive deformation. If she did notice my stare, she hid it well; her good eye, a warm brown, was hastily drawing her eyes across the platform, where all manners of folks traveled rapidly from corridor to dark corridor. No one seemed to pay us any mind, which was better for us. I did not want to risk discovering what happened to the newest inhabitants of the Citadel towers once they were divided off into their little groups. 

When she took too long to respond to my first question, I huffed and tried again.  

“Alright, then, pup. Y’got a name?” 

Her eyes lit up with recognition of the phrase, and she grinned toothlessly around her thumb. 

“Mary,” she slobbered, reminding me a little too much of Maude to ignore the pang of guilt that hit me in the chest. 

A Before-Time name, the name of a goddess, or so I struggled to remember. I nodded in confirmation at her. That name wouldn’t last long, not around here. 

The familiar scrape of a canvas boot struck me in the thigh, and I saw Mary’s expression change drastically. She began performing that squirmy, nervous little dance she had displayed on the platform once her mother had left her to her own devices. The woman was getting impatient, and the pup realized it. 

“Listen, until we can prove that the kid is yours, you’re going to have to stay with her,” she said. 

 _Oh, fuck that_. I was not here to take care of a stranger’s child.  

“…how much would ya want for her?” I asked, and her nose curled in confusion.  

Her arms crossed defiantly at me. She seemed pissed to see me trying to get the pup off my hands. 

“What kind of mother are you? If you want to bargain, go to Bartertown,” she snapped.  

“Oh,  _f_ _uck_ off!  _I’m not her mother!_ Isn’t there somewhere she can go?! I’m here for work!”   

“Stop holdin’ up the line, idiot!” a man behind me snapped. 

I turned and grimaced at him, and he set his shoulders. 

“Could y’take tha’ mediocre face elsewhere, smeg? You’re sourin’ the air,” I snapped, tugging Mary close so that she was pressed against my thigh. 

I could tell me was about to swing, but before he could wind up his fist far back enough to hit me properly, the woman’s black board came between us with surprising speed.  

“Do _not_ make me call security!” she hollered, and I felt Mary sob softly at my leg and curl her little hands into my skirts, whining and demanding to be picked up.  

I wanted to snap back, I truly did. But I couldn’t risk getting kicked off. The violent ones went back to the Wretches. I could never face Maude again, not so soon. 

I leaned down to scoop up the sobbing pup, and though I struggled to hold a pup so large, I manage to lean her against my bony hip. 

“...where’m I supposed to go? I can’t work with her,” I said, and the woman sighed and shook her head. 

“...I’m going to send you two to the Seedbed, and you’ll stay there until we can find someone to take the kid off your hands. New mothers stay there, with their litters. Nice and safe. Then we’ll decide what to do with you.” 

I could only adjust a fussing Mary on my shoulder as I nodded. The Citadel was a huge place, and I knew one kid wouldn’t be hurried away to someone responsible, if at all. Wherever I was going, I was going to be rotting there for a long while. 

Mary and I were moved into my own little group of two, while the rest of the folks were processed through and ushered off. The heat of the day was only a little less overbearing than it usually was in the old tent, but with Mary- who was now settling down to try and sleep- clinging to me, I knew I would slowly begin sweating my paint off.  

I found myself standing there and leaning against a wall for what seemed like ages. Mary was getting heavy. Part of me wanted to complain, but I remembered Maude. Words were nothing but nuisances up here.  

It took a while, but eventually, I found out that when things change in the Citadel, they change quickly. 

By the time the sun was fading down the horizon and the temperature was beginning to drop, a War Boy, all white paint and scars appeared amid the crowd of tanned browns and dirty clothes. He stared down at us from his towering height, casting his hard gaze down on us, scrutinizing, as he swiftly passed us to go speak to the full-figured woman. I was used to the sight of them from my youth, but not many of them lingered in the Third Tower, lest they were the young Drummer-Pups that so religiously banged out beats for war parties and supply runners to drive along to as they left the Citadel.  

They regarded each-other and spoke for a while, and the longer he stared at her, the redder his face got as his eyes lingered on her breasts. She smiled at him, and her eyes twinkled as he leaned down to nuzzle his nose against her cheek, leaving a pale mark behind. 

 _Oh_. My heart dropped, and I scuffed the floor with my boot, rapidly turning away. Never seen  _that_  behavior from a War Boy before, especially not towards a lady. 

He approached me regretfully, it seemed, and his expression changed back to one of complete bitterness. He didn’t say a word at me, didn’t seem to want to waste his breath- he just cocked his bald head in one direction and began walking away from me. 

I struggled to collect myself and Mary. I had put my bag down long ago, and Mary was slipping down my side. I tried to gather my things as rapidly as possible, but I had no choice but to take my time.  

“Mother-- will you— _smeg!_ _Wait, for fuck’s sake!_ ” 

My insult, harmless as it was, seemingly stilled him in his spot. Out puffed his chest as he turned, and his face twisted up in the ugliest of snarls. I turned my eyes down. I knew he could snap me if he wanted to. 

When I finally caught up with him, he looked at Mary instead of me. He didn’t seem so harsh with her. He just reached out and tugged on a strand of her hair to see if she would wake up from her half-slumber, and she didn’t. His chest deflated in what I assumed was a chuckle, even though his face didn’t twitch in the slightest. 

“Not yours?” he asked, and I was sure I was going to have an episode of the heart.  

Why was it so hard for everyone up here to realize a woman with a kid at her side wasn’t a mother? I bit the inside of my cheek to avoid snapping at this squawking hawk of a man. 

“ _No._ Someone’s. Got sent up alone by her mum. With me by accident.” 

“Probably wants her to work with us,” he said. “Everyone’s flockin’ to get the paint.”  

“Not everyone. Ain’t no babies bein’ born no more. Besides, even if she  _was_  mine... wouldn’t be sure I’d send her t’ _your_ folks. You’d gut’er and eat’er alive.” 

His expression thundered, but he displayed that foreign restraint that I wasn’t used to seeing. 

“I could find ten Boys willin’ to _gut_  you for ‘er, too.  Least we could raise’er up into somethin’ useful... you’re  _nothin_ ’. Quit playin’ smart, it ain’t the Wasteland up ‘ere.”  

I spat up the sour taste in my mouth and aimed for his boot as we walked, only narrowly missing. It made me even more pissed. 

“It’s Wasteland  _everywhere_ , now, no matter what Joe put through your head! All you War Boys are on neutral, rollin’ around whenever someone stronger than you gives you a good enough shove. Everythin’s dead out there, and it looks like it’s just as dead up here too.”  

The man huffed and grumbled something below his breath, squeezed his fists... did nothing. 

He hiked his low-rise work pants higher on his hips and stared at me crookedly, like he had lizard bone stuck between his front teeth, before continuing forward.  

I fell sluggishly behind the stranger as he bobbed and wove through the diminishing crowds of what looked to be exclusively Wretches-turned-workers. Though they hadn’t originally lived there, I had been explained, the Wives had abolished the segregation of the multiple social classes by opening the Towers up to any and everyone. Apparently, those considered no more than slaves could now live in the First Tower with the Wives and war heroes, if they got their esteemed respect. In my eyes, nothing had really changed from the Immortan’s time here, but I said nothing. I never liked politics, anyhow.  

The man instructed me to stop briefly in front of a hallway leading off into a room erupting with clamoring noise, and I was glad not to join him. There was more waiting, more shouting from within the room, and eventually, he returned with a warm bowl of  _something_. 

He told me I’d be getting three rations a day, though they were doubled in size for the pup.  

I stared down in the gooey, hot stuff, and looked up at him. My hand was shaking hard under the weight of the bowl, my things, and Mary. 

“Doubled daily rations? How much longer am I keepin’ her? I’m not here for her, _I_ _said that before_!” 

The man stared blankly at me. He genuinely didn’t seem to know. 

“You’ll be fine. The Seedbed’s... _comf’terble_.” 

Through more mazes of raw, rock walls and dusty floors came a room at the end a corridor with something written on a sign at the door. The door was not a door, but a wide collection of bars on an axis. When I was still with Maude, she often told a story from her youth; that once, she had been sent to jail for being in the possession of something-or-other, drugs, I think. She had to spend a night or two behind doors just like those.  _The Slammer_. A big cage.  

He brandished a key to let me inside, and I felt myself sweat.  

“You’re lockin’ me in?” I asked, and he shook his head.  

The door opened with a sickening squall, rust on rust, and he pointedly looked at me. 

“Y’can leave whenever... y’just won’t be able t’come back inside. Keeps people out, not  _you_  inside.” 

When I still didn’t move, he grunted and flapped his hands at the entrance. He looked tired and uneasy. Maybe he wanted to go back to his pretty lady. I couldn’t blame him.  

The room was dimly lit from within by the light of a single oil lamp, which gave the foreign space a falsely cozy atmosphere. It was lined with what looked to be a combination of mats, though it seemed that the last occupant had rearranged the place to her liking, with several of the mats piled one on top of the other, and the ratty pillow having been collected into the furthest corner from the door. Across from that messy resting spot was a stack of sloppily folded rags and a bucket, the stench of which still permeated the room- a changing station. This place was a glorified Before Time nursery.  

I stepped in and set Mary down on the nearest mat to the door, and she only slightly grumbled before falling right back asleep. It seemed she wasn’t hungry enough to stay awake and fuss.  

I put the cooling bowl down in the empty spot beside her, and as I settled myself, glanced at the door. Yes, there was a lock for me to turn to shut the door. He wasn’t lying to me.  

I relaxed, but only slightly. The man glanced over his shoulder at me one last time as he moved to shut the door. I didn’t say anything to him, and he said nothing to me. The room suddenly became very cold and very lonely, besides Mary’s soft breathing.  

I needed to get out of here. I couldn’t risk becoming a foster mother just for the sake of some child. 

Vomit rose in my throat, and I swallowed hard. I lost my appetite. 

I sounded like my father. 


	4. Red, Black, White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush gets lost, and gets found.

_Pa_ _and I sat at_ _a wreck, the rubbish left behind after a car had gotten engulfed in flame, in the middle of an endless desert. From within the tossed vehicle, which looked twisted up to the point of resembling a coiled snake, a shrill screech filled the air._  

 _Pa was_ _definitely close_ _enough to save the passenger pinned beneath metal and rubber, but he ignored the sound in favor of reaching into the steaming heap of junk and ripping away the rear-view mirror from the ceiling of the car._  

He smiled at me and tossed me _the hunk of plastic and glass_ _; when I stared into it, I saw absolutely nothing._  

 _I wailed._  

Mary’s whimpers woke me from a dream I hadn’t had in a long while. Blinking myself awake in the dark, I grappled blindly for the pup, who had rolled far enough from me in sleep to give me a momentary scare.  

The oil lamp had run dry after four days, but regardless, I could feel her thrashing beneath my fingers. The sun hadn’t risen yet, it was still too cold for that, but the girl still insisted on weeping and fussing and attempting to stuff her little digits in her mouth. While she buried her face into the collar of my tunic, she wailed for her mother. 

I lifted Mary into my lap in an attempt to soothe her, but her little thighs were moist.  

I groaned. Wasn’t she too old for all this? I scooped her up onto my bare forearm and with a huff and tried to ignore the rancid scent emanating from her, from the mats, from the blankets. It reminded me of the uglier, dirtier parts of birth. At least it wasn’t shit.  

Mary and I had been here far too long, and it felt like we had been without food for much longer. The War Boy serving us our meal- he had last shown his ugly face two mornings ago- seemed to be growing irritated with me. He kept staring at Mary and shoving diminishing portions at me.  

I had enough nerve, while I still had a full belly, to ask him whether anyone was coming to get Mary or not.  _“No one will if_ _y’keep_ _treating her like she’s yours,”_  he had said with a hissing growl.  

Mary grumbled something as she leaned into my shoulder, nearly hissing like an angry little worm of a snake, and from the growing light creeping in through the minuscule window, I could see nothing but the somewhat reflective quality of her dark, oily hair. I stumbled around sleepily with my cheek pressed against her scalp, rocking her achingly despite the piss dripping down my arm.  

I felt a little hand reach with a whimper towards my chest and paw greedily at my breast. Despite her wet bottom and her irritability, Mary was still trying to stick a hand down the neck of my tunic.  

I paused and watched her for a minute as I kneeled in front of the pile of ratty, cut up clothing I had spotted the night before; the faded stains on them proved their use as cleaned nappies. Not the most sanity thing in the world, and Mary was big, but they would have to do.  

Mary started garbling fussy complaints at me when she couldn’t quite figure out how to get the skin to skin contact she wanted. Her whimpers were rapidly turning back into shouts, and they proved to be much louder than a newborn’s.  

“Alright,  _alright!_  Damn... Sorry,” I snapped quietly, removing her arm from where it was beginning to strangle me around the throat. 

Without wasting another breath, I took her hand and slid it across my chest beneath my tunic from its open sides. The Mother’ miracles never ceased, because the instant she felt my pulse under her little fingers, her body of tenseness and knots went slack in my hands.  

I paused for a moment in the silence, listening to the sounds coming from the long, dead hallway. Unlike yesterday, the Citadel seemed dead. When I was sure I wasn’t going to receive a walloping for being too loud, I exhaled deeply with relief and sat back on my heels. 

“You  _never_ wake someone up like that,” I told her. “What if I had been someone nasty, huh? Y’have t’be more careful, Mary.” 

I know the girl wouldn’t say anything. She wasn’t much of a talker. Besides, she was exhausted and uncomfortable. At least now, I wouldn’t have anyone who ate more than me to worry about. She would make fine company.  

She was floppier than a corpse, and I couldn’t clean her like I did a newborn. Lifting her while she was dangled in my clothes was difficult enough, but it didn’t help that she weighed as much as a bloated, rotting lizard.  

“It’s bad enough that you're still pissin’ yourself...” I said, staring down at her bleary little face. “Your mum coulda bared t’feed y’less.” 

She made an indignant noise, and her little palms slapped at my collarbones. I couldn’t help but smile at her. Horrible, smart girl. Listening like she was would do her well.  

While the darkness and the required quiet we forced to uphold were smothering us, obliging us to be slower and less effective in the early hours than I might have liked, I knew better than to move a sleeping pup. It was difficult to know why the Mother had asked me to handle her, at first, but as I gazed around the room, I sensed that she might have been worse off in other hands. 

Everything, besides where Mary and I had slept and the other mats stuffed in a corner, seemed oddly untouched. The floor, beds, and sheets had settled with a thin layer of sand that no one had decided to sweep up or beat out; the corners of the ceiling hosted homes to friendly, crawly critters that kept the room clear of buzzing flies; the sun streaming in through the window illuminated the dust floating on the air.  

The window in this place was most confusing of all, upon further thought. It didn’t even have a glass pane as the Dome did on the room that housed the Wives. How could it keep the sand out when it blew in on the wind? Not even flaps to pin close over the opening.  

I side-eyed it from my place on the floor. It didn’t even look neat and carved out, like the balconies or look-out points on other parts of the Towers. The edges of this window were raw and looked as if they had been clumsily hammered into the angry, gaping void it was now. I could see every clumsy strike of a dull tool. How long had it taken? Who had made it? 

I peered in closer to examine the rock, Mary’s weight heavy against my chest. The sunrise was painting the dark rock a reddish brown and lighting up something reflective on the very edge of the window. A shattered piece of glass? A lost tool? 

The little crow in my brain, the same one that encouraged me to steal as a child and earned me beating upon beating, got engaged. With one hand, I slid my hand behind Mary’s little head and shuffled onto my knees, cringing harshly at every one of her huffing breaths and squirms. The window was tall- I had to roll back onto my heels and squat upwards to get enough height to slide my hand across the bottom of the window.  

A sharp pain made me recoil and fall back on my rump. Luckily, Mary did nothing but grumble- lucky girl, probably has slept through murder- but I was sure she could hear my heart pounding in my chest when I pulled my fingers back towards me. 

My pointer and my middle had been sliced just below the nails and were bleeding profusely for such tiny little cuts. A thin piece of metal was clenched between my trembling fingers. 

A razor. I little razor, only a couple of inches long. Why was this here? Who placed this somewhere where grubby hands could slice off fingers or toes? 

I swallowed back the spit that was pooling in my mouth. When I was still in the early stages of delivering pups, I remember one woman who gave birth to a girl pup. She was insistent on a boy. She said that, at least, a boy would be useful- she could go up the Lift and sell her boy and her milk. But a girl? Half profit.  

I remember seeing the glint of a similar blade, back then. Maude had clapped her hand over my eyes and ushered me out of the tent before I could understand what was going on. I had cut the cord properly, hadn’t I? I was told to sit and wait.  

Pup cries that were wailing and healthy for a few long moments went quiet. Maude was in a horrible temper when she emerged from there. She shoved a jug of cola at me and told me to follow. Her bloody handprints had stained the old plastic.  

My blood ran cold. This was no nursery. Pups got sent here to die. The door didn’t have two locks to keep folks out; it was just a practical way to let a woman out and remove a corpse if need be.  

I stared at the bowl of stagnant food that had been given to me the night before. I had a sickening feeling this would be the last portion Mary and I would get for a long while.  

No one was coming for her. She was deformed. No one wanted a pup that couldn’t work.  

I looked to the pile of blankets and pillows and mats in the corner, and the dust on the floor.  

The whole room was a death trap. The pillows, meant for smothering; the razor, for quiet slicing; the window...  _Mother almighty_.  

It was expected of me. I was meant to leave Mary here to starve, or kill her, and go. I was more useful without a burden.   

I stared at the door. Out in the hall, there was quiet. This room was as far back into the twisting maze of the Citadel as possible. Either it was secret, or no one wanted to hear the noise. 

Mary growled in my arms and irritably slapped at my arms. I hadn’t realized I had been digging my fingers into her hair.  

I knew we were more fucked than a compass in an electric storm. 

I stared at the barred door. The War Boy that had brought me here said that I could go when I pleased. But what would he think if I left with the girl? She was supposed to be dead. But her mother  _wanted_ her here. And the Mother sent her to  _me_. 

I kissed Mary’s scalp and curled tightly around her. Tears burned my eyes. I didn’t want to be here, and I didn’t know what would happen if I left. I couldn’t kill a pup, a little baby. No matter how little I wanted her around. 

“Don’t you say a _word_ , pup,” I whispered as reassuringly as I could to Mary, rubbing my eyes clear of grit and coming away with streaks of yellow on my soiled gloves.  

I needed to go to someone who would listen. I needed a woman. A Wife. 

I didn’t know where I could find the new rulers of this horrid place. I just had to believe that they weren’t organizing this operation. That they wouldn’t force a mother to kill her pup for a chance at easier work.  

I got to my feet awkwardly with Mary in my arms, trembling all the while. I was starving, and so was she. Stumbling over to the door, I made a point to wipe my bloodied fingers against the bars. Let them think I killed Mary and dumped her to the crows from the window and left on my own. I had a feeling they wouldn’t be tracking me for long. I was one, skinny, solitary woman. I would be forgotten. 

The door yelped under my shaking hand when I turned the key and opened it up. I was too frightened to look back when I grabbed my things and stepped out of the door. I didn’t want to catch the eyes of a lonely ghost looking for a mother. 

I didn’t speak to Mary as we walked, but I regarded her as I wandered, weary, through the halls. The footfalls of my metal-toed boots were loud and distinct against the stone ground, especially in the silence. Mary had no idea where she was, certainly, but something about the way she was clinging and insisting on me taking care of her made me question the intentions of her mother. How did this little creature know I would be so kind to her? I would have remembered delivering a girl her age. Had her mother known about me somehow? Bullshit, I wasn’t so popular. 

I swallowed hard. Just like leaving that death chamber, Mary coming to me was all based on faith. 

While the darkness and the required quiet we forced to uphold were smothering us, obliging us to be slower and less effective in the early hours than we might have liked, Mary knew better than to speak while I was creeping about. It was difficult to sense where these halls were taking me, but she clammed up at every clatter of a pebble or awkward wheeze. Clever.  _Clever._ I smoothed her head of thick hair as a reward. 

The halls smothered me in a way that the Wretched alleys and tents never did. Raw rock walls filled with dust and smoke seemed to choke me alive. The only light was artificial, came from flame; little burning fires in metal buckets stashed in corners, or hanging overhead in hellish baskets on chains. It made the walls burn red-brown, like dried blood.  

I wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go. I was lost in a complicated knot of doors, halls, and potential strangers. 

I hit dead end upon dead end of empty rooms and storage space.  

Doorway; dust and forgotten sleep mats. New room; a collection of spider webs living in old boots and clinging to lost trousers. Where was I? What was this? Why was so much of this place abandoned?  

 _Bang!_  

I nearly dropped Mary when, just a few doors down from where I stood, something was dropped to the ground and rattled the very floor I stood on. It was followed by a series of groans, something that sounded nearly childish. Something I wasn’t familiar with.  

Something.  _Something_ sounded like boys, which made bile rise in my throat. 

 _Something_ sounded like heavy tools and the bark of instructions. 

 _Something_ was just down the hall. 

It hadn’t crept up on me, I hadn’t heard it coming.  _Something was here_.  

I looked back from where I had come. There was nothing I recognized.  

My arms were burning with Mary in them, and I was getting hungry. Where else was I supposed to go? I couldn’t go back and murder the pup in arms.  

I squeezed the girl tightly to my chest. There was no other way out but through.  

The hallway into the room was cold and dark, and within, it was even redder than the halls.  

Well. Redder and  _whiter_. 

A pair of guards in pale, boney paint stood over what looked to be a broken dish of food, while another group dressed just a same stood, irritated, at the edges of the room.  

The two boys standing over the mess were just  _enormous_. While most of the others in the rooms matched them both in height, these men were built like war machines, all muscle and battle scars, no awkward mismatched limbs lengths or youthful chub. The sight of them supremely terrified me but left me oddly excitable, the same excitement that accompanied my childhood filching habits. Truly, I didn’t hate it.  

A third boy stood between the other two men, looking as if he had just spilled a perfectly good dish of water. The Boy on the left did not even allow the boy to get a word in white he released manic curses and snarls. The boy’s hands instantly shot out to put something between himself and the man. I couldn’t see over their shoulders to see his face, but I didn’t exactly want to look. I’m sure he was thanking V8 that the crowd couldn’t see his cowardice. 

“You had  _one_ fucking job, slit-head,” the snarling man said.  

The younger, rounder boy recoiled, spooked, but he spoke up regardless.  

“You talk like we still won’t eat it! Damn, I’ll still eat it! ’ll find y’another bowl.” 

“Take your  _mediocre wretch-_ _self_ somewhere else,” the other guard snapped.  

“Hey, _fuck you_ , I ain’t the most mediocre one here!” the littler one growled, and in the torchlight, I saw the men’s faces shift like weather on storm nights.  

I set my feet and shoulders as they postured up. I backed away and prayed for nothing worse than a broken nose for the littler one. My lip quivered. I smelled my own sweat. 

People snapped and snarled at him from the sidelines, clearly clamoring for food, but just as the men in front of him dropped low in their knees in preparation for a fight... the chubby-face, painted soldier-boy and I locked eyes. 

I stumbled back on instinct, into the dark of the hallway, but it was too late. I knew it was.  

His big, brown eyes got wide, and he stepped right through the slop, his boots dragging through oils and fats and leaving a trail behind him. He walked towards me like I was a child, almost like he was approaching Mary. Did he even notice the pup in my arms? 

His approach towards me made all the others in the room turn towards me, too. There was fear and worry, apprehension too, in their faces, and I didn’t know where to go.  

They weren’t hollering or trying to grab at me, which was more than I could say for some Wretched men with too much food in their bellies and too much time on their hands. But that didn’t mean they weren’t fucking terrifying. 

My cord-cutting knife was heavy on my hip, but with Mary in my arms, now whimpering and struggling to grab at me around the neck for more support, I knew I wouldn’t be able to grab it in time. I just had to stand there and wait for the inevitable. The questions. The yelling. The force. 

The boy-man was trying to think of something to say. His eyes were working. But he was gaping. Open, closed. Open, closed. A swallow. A gasp.  

“ _Pit!”_  

One of the men behind the boy-man barked at him and sent both Mary and I yelping and backing up further.  

The boy-man turned his head and growled, but he paid attention when the man cocked his head down the hall towards us. 

“Get the boss.” 

The boss? I tried to shout at the man,  _who is the boss_ , but my voice was drowned out by the growing chatter around me, a hundred men in white arguing over what should be done. I briefly heard them arguing about the chain of command-  _Why_ _d’you t_ _hink you can give orders on breeders? Where’s your black paint? Barely know your engine_ _yet!_ - but regardless, the boy-man named Pit still shuffled along and began to jog back into the tangle of halls. 

On the way, he made a point to pause and look at me. His brown eyes glowed red by fire.  

“We’ll sort you out,” he said, most awkwardly.  

I didn’t know what he meant. Before I could read the expression on his face, he was gone. 

I thought about running, but it would do me no good. Men were already approaching me with open hands, ready to take me or my things.  

I don’t remember the scream- just the squeeze of my eyes and white stars in the dark. 


	5. Snake Charmer

White skin, in principle, was strange. No one pale existed anymore. The pale ones turned red, and everyone else got dark from the sun. No one looked quite so pasty anymore, except for newborn pups. Some of them were frightening- you could see every vein in their little bodies through the vernix.  

When I was young, I had always wondered what type of spider had woven them up on the inside, and how it would come out. I just figured the sun would burn them out.  

Spiders still thrived inside these men.  

Wars Boys, all in blinding white, stalked me with wide eyes I had only ever seen in young children. They garbled loudly amongst each-other, their shaved faces contorting and flashing in the dark. Their mouths and eyes were great, gaping pits of angry, confused desire. They were _hungry_ , but disturbingly enough, I couldn’t tell what they wanted on their plate.  

Most of them towered over me like pale, unnatural dust clouds, perfectly smooth and rounded just like the powdery collections of dust getting blown on the wind. Most of their faces were round, too- War _Boys_ , to be sure.  

They were hesitating to touch me. Some reached out, but my barking and Mary’s persistent wailing kept them at bay.  

Poor thing in my arms, she was hollering for her mother and was digging her blunt, short nails into my bare shoulders. I didn’t know how to comfort her; I barely knew what to do with myself. All I could do was kiss her scalp and try to block her vision by folding my arm across the back of her head and forcing her face into my neck.  

The swipe of their limbs at me left a metallic, sour scent in the air. Pa used to smell the very same, when he’d come back from trips to Gastown and decided to let his failure permeate the tent. This was the same.  

Bites of conversation exploded in my eardrums.  

“V8 brought her to  _us_ , mate--”  

“--no one fuckin’ wants a  _wretch_ in here, maybe she’s  _got_ somethin’--” 

“--take the pup?! Get yer head outta yer ass, it won’t last a thousand days!”  

“She can’t be more than six thousand days old--” 

“--sell her t’someone and at least get _somethin’_ outta it!” 

I wanted to grab my knife, but I had been forcefully backed into the wall as one of the Boys, the same one that had given instructions to the other child to ‘fetch the boss’, argued with a smaller group over what should be done. They kept looking at me, occasionally flying their cultish little hand signal at me. They had always done the same when they were about to head out to the Citadel, whether that be on The Road or on that dreaded night in the spring. 

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to focus on Mary. I could feel her heart jumping out of her chest against my skin.  

Our hearts were rabbiting against one-another's. I couldn’t tell who’s was running faster, but I did know whose little engine would burn out first. It was just a matter of time. 

Vomit was pooling in the back of my mouth. I was tipping. Mary was screaming louder. She seemed to know that if someone had to move, unless they wanted to lose a potential soldier or we wanted to lose our lives.  

I heard my heavy breath. Mary’s little hands felt my lungs expand, digits down my tunic.  

Eventually, I heard someone else’s breath, too.  

I’m  _sure_ I heard someone shout, “Aw,  _fuck it!”_  before reaching out and trying to grab Mary by her tiny forearm. Maybe he was trying to grab me, but I’d never know.  

The first mistake he made was trying to separate me from the pup. 

I didn’t know how fast I could be, when I was afraid, how agile my bone-hugging bag of skin could be when I saw the life of a baby flash before my eyes. It must have been midwife instinct. I heard Maude’s voice in my head.  _When in doubt, cut the cord._  

I drew my knife in time with the rising of the ruckus around us, and without thinking, blindly struck it out in front of me. I knew I had struck something, but I was too frightened to open my eyes. 

The choking gasps and eventual screaming hit me before I had the stomach retract my arm. The room around me shook and  _howled_ , drowning out everything else. 

I didn’t know how to use my knife as a weapon. I had had it for years, spilled blood with it, but never to harm. I had to look.  _I had to look_. 

Wide, trembling eyes, dry from what looked to be years of practice, stared and screamed at me in time with his mouth. Strings of spit clung to his teeth as he spilled his rage across my face, down my neck, into Mary’s hair, onto my chest. In his hand, he clutched at his own fingers, brown, boiling blood pooling from his knuckles. As it dripped to the floor, I nearly expected it to sizzle on impact with the worn rock. 

He was hyperventilating. His eyes were a shocking black. Or, maybe they weren’t. I didn’t get a chance to look very hard.  

His bloody hand came down on me with a guttural roar, and the other grabbed Mary by the hair. He slammed his palm against my neck and squeezed, but it wasn’t very hard. I knew the squeeze of tight fingers... and he was missing some of his. 

His limb, dying fingers were only half-attached to his hand, and I could feel them trying desperately to squeeze my neck. I wasn’t concerned with my own breathing- I was reaching for Mary. 

She was being held upright and backwards behind the fucker, like he was about to hand her off. Her shaggy little hair cut was the only thing keeping her in his grasp. She was  _wailing_ , half-spitting up and surely wetting the nappy I had made for her.  

I needed her,  _I needed her_! 

I smelled his sour, meaty breath as he leaned in, screaming, probably with the intention to scare me.  

My heart slammed to a stop as the horrible realization came to me. 

 _I still had the knife._  

Though my vision was spotting at the edges, my upper lip curled as I dared to scream back, splattering my own spit across his face. I raised the knife, heard a joint roar come to the room... and then, suddenly, like a storm, an eerie collective silence. 

Mary was the only one who continued yelling in the quiet, though it seemed that even then, she had the wherewithal to look off towards the entrance of the room. 

I couldn’t turn my head. Blood was rushing in my ears, and though I knew my eyes were open, I couldn’t see a thing. I felt like I was falling, despite the bastard still holding me up by the throat. 

I tried to hold out my arms, but they fell, empty.  

I was dropped. That much I knew. The War Boy holding me up was surely not gentle enough to think of placing me. I wasn’t his pup. 

I was in and out of it for a few moments, but by the time I came to, Mary had wriggled her way back into my lap and was still fussing, loudly sucking her thumb in my ear.  

My vision cleared as fresh air entered my lungs. Mary’s little face was buried by my collarbone, the scent of piss never having felt so comforting. Her hair was tussled in an angry knot around her head, and the tumor on her face was nearly scalding hot against my own skin. Her tears cooled me down, and as I leaned back against the wall, I wrapped myself around her and squeezed her tightly.  

The Mother sent me this girl. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t been around to take that War Boy’s weight off my throat? I would have carked it. 

Blessed little thing. I’d be sure to teach her her morning prayers, if we got out of this shit alive. 

“...she drew a knife on me! You expected me t’sit there and let her take my hand off?!” 

A trembling voice spoke up out of the blue. I didn’t need to seek out the owner of that squawk. Though that gassy, oily smell still drifted around, I could pick out the smell of nervous sweat.  

I could see the man’s boots through the fog of white and black around me, puddling an increasingly disgusting pool of blood onto the dropped pile of what looked to be meat that had been dropped earlier. His toes must have been soaked in the sticky stuff by now. It would take him weeks to get it out. 

Another pair of larger boots stood across from his, just out of the way of the hot, red lifeblood. I couldn’t see his face from my position on the floor, but all heads were turned at him, and everyone kept their gobs shut. 

This was the Big Boss.  

Part of me was expecting Furiosa, but this man wore War Boy trousers and boots far too large to belong to her. Or, maybe they weren’t too big. I hadn’t seen her, the day she had gone up the lift. Maude and I were too busy hauling ass in a desperate attempt to grab a part of Joe to sell off to someone far hungrier than us.  

The Big Boss huffed and shifted his weight slowly to one leg. He looked irritated and uncomfortable.  

“You took her pup from her,” he said bluntly, and sighed like saying it made him hurt more than his fellow Boy’s sore hand.  

His voice shocked, but not in the way I was expecting. Where as I was nearly anticipating Joe’s booming voice over the sound of a microphone... this man spoke with a strain and a calm sort of disposition that made him even more frightening.  

An explosion of responses filled the room, especially by the fingerless man and what looked to be his friends. The man was trembling at the knees, and looked in a similar state to myself. When he wiped his sweating upper lip, he left a streak of crimson blood behind; when I touched my neck and the bottom of my face, it felt sticky-wet. We were matching.  

“So you’re gonna let her do whatever, huh?! Let some Wretch-whore walk on our turf ‘cause she’s got a kid?!” the fingerless man shouted, pointing at me.  

“C’mon, boss, be reasonable!  _Look at her!_  So what if the kid got a lil’ busted up?! Ain’t worth anything anyhow!”  

“Will all of you  _shut your goddamned mouths_?!”  

Mary yelped and cried, and I jumped when the Big Boss yelled. Now  _that_ was the voice of a Big Boss. Mother on her heavenly throne... The room fell to quiet grumbles instantly. It reminded me of the way the crowds would hush when we were awaiting aqua cola. This  _was_ Joe, and his hands were on the levers.  

“...where is she?”  

The crowd parted before my heart sunk to my stomach. Some glowered down at me; others seemed somewhat impressed; the rest didn’t seem to fully comprehend that a woman was in their midst, and were still wide-eyed and flashing laced fingers at me.  

I knew all this, but I wasn’t really looking at them. With the subtle _shhff_ _,_ _shhff_ _,_ _shhff_ of his boots on the ground, like a snake in sand, the Big Boss came face to face with me.  

He was _incredible_ , in a way a lightning victim scalded to death was. He was  _old_ , and was standing with the stubborn pride of someone who knew he was dying but wasn’t quite there yet. Lumps and bumps covered him- typical War Boy ails- settling in the creases of his aged body, which was still shockingly robust. And yet... I couldn’t see the full extent of it.  

He was leaning heavily on a cane made of a hollow, thin pipe, its highest end curved to fit the Big Boss’ meaty hand. He leaned heavily on it as he shuffled forwards towards me, his body tightly wrapped in stained bandages, yet Mary and I had nowhere to go. I didn’t want to know how easily he could swing that cane.  

My knife was sitting just a few feet away. In my foolishness, I tried to reach for it, but a loyal War Boy who wasn’t distracted by the shock of seeing a woman and child kicked my precious blade away. It hopped and clanged violently across the floor for a few feet until it landed in the pile of blood and greasy meat. The sound didn’t stop the Big Boss. If anything, it just made him pick up his pace.  

A hand touched my shoulder and broke my concentration. To my surprise, and probably to everyone else’s, a soft figure was crouched next to me, furiously blushing through the pallor of his paint. It was that boy that had dropped all the food, with his big dark crow-eyes and thick lashes, making a face like he knew he shouldn’t really be touching me.  

“Ya gotta stand for the Ace, smeg,” he whispered, and only blushed further when he grabbed me under the bicep and yanked me off the floor like a weighed nothing.  

I wondered why I expected sympathy from the child-man as I stumbled over my boots, all the while trying to soothe a moaning Mary while the Big Boss-  _the Ace_ \- got right in my face.  

He didn’t reek, like the others. He smelled fresh. And though his eyes were squinty and swollen... I wasn’t very scared when he got in my face. He looked too much like Maude up close for me to do much more that tighten my grip on Mary and stare right back.  

He smelled like spices, that’s what it was. Old World cologne.  

“...you here to help, Sister?” 

The crowd around me lost their breath with me, and I’m sure if we had just a few more people, the dust settled in the crevices of the floor and walls would have been swept into the air.  

I swallowed and moved to put Mary on the ground. Suddenly, the entrance of the Big Boss didn’t feel so grand. I felt as if I were about to be yelled at by my father.  

“Pardon?”  

I remembered my Before Time manners. I hardly ever used them. Maude had tried to get those polite words to stick-  _yes ma’am, no sir, pardon, excuse me, I apologize, thank you very much_ \- but growing up with gutter-mouthed Mercedes Man had quickly erased all her hard work.  

The Big Boss leaned back slowly, and the room was so quiet that I could hear his old skin stretching over his muscles and the pop of what I assumed to be his bad knee.  

He settled both hands over the curve of his walking stick- walking pipe? It was a tool for getting around as much as it was a weapon. And he knew that I knew so. 

“ _Clear out_!” he barked, with a tone that made my molars ache.  

No one dared move for a moment. The man about to miss his fingers looked about ready to start screaming, and I did too. The boy that had called me smeg, Pit, made a funny sound with his nose, like a nervous huff. I heard similar noises.  

Someone nearby whispered something loud enough for me to hear. 

 _I don’t_ _wanna_ _be the one stuck hauling her out by the hair_.  

The Big Boss heard it too. His eyes didn’t change, didn’t get angry, but something in his body did. He rolled his shoulders back and puffed himself out like a venomous snake, turning in the direction of the man.  

With an earth-shattering burst of energy, the Big Boss swung the pipe in his hand up and into his hand, its hooked end facing outwards, his hands at its base. A glint of terrifying, silvery-clear metal- a razor, I knew that now- gleamed as he leaned far out to hook the spreader of slander around the neck. 

I’m certain I heard the slice, even though I knew it was impossible. The Big Boss yanked the man forward, and the crowd around him scattered instantly.  

Boots flew, hands slapped and punched at limbs in hopes to create a path, tools in belts clanged in a cacophony unlike anything I had ever heard. All the while, the Big Boss had pulled the whisperer close and was shouting something at her, pointing at me, Mary, then him. The War Boy was bleeding furiously down the back of the neck, and he, oh, he was crying.  

I didn’t want Mary to see. As she screeched and clung back to my skirts to be let back up, I frantically leaned down and smacked my hand over her eyes.  

At the bottleneck of the entrance, Boys all but climbed over one another to get out and into the hall through the dark exit. I was surprised that no one was getting burned on the torches by the entrance, the way they were practically falling over one-another to leave.  

As the Big Boss yelled at the bleeding man in his grasp, his eyes fell to the mashed up pile of meat and blood, still sitting in the middle of the room. War Boys tread all over the meal without a care; they were no longer hungry, and I couldn’t blame them. My knife, never having been shiny, was getting lost in the muck, but it seemed that the Big Boss still noticed it. The chaos seemed to give the Big Boss the encouragement to call out one more order.  

“ _Pit!_  You stay!” he called, and without a care the Big Boss put a hand on the man’s chest, unhooked him from his cane, and shoved him to the floor.  

The man fell with a  _thunk_ , gasping harshly, trying to regain his bearings. Another War Boy had the wherewithal to lean down and grab him by the hands, keeping his eyes low. He knew better than to look at me or the Big Boss again.  

The room cleared out in under a minute.  

All that was left from the scene I had just witnessed was the pile of bloody food, the old man, and the tall, waif of a War Boy called Pit, standing and shaking by the entrance, chewing the skin of his thumb.  

The Big Boss looked around for a moment, looking like a man on a mission. It was almost as if he had completely forgotten about Mary and I- he was too busy scuffing his foot in the mess on the floor. He peered around the room, looking for any lingering War Boys hiding in corners, and glared down the hall to check for eavesdroppers. With a deep, heaving breath, his taught shoulders relaxed... and he fell.  

It was a very distinguished fall, I could give him that much. It was more of an uncoordinated sit than anything else. He just plopped onto his backside on the ground, probably knowing someone would be able to clean his pants for him afterwards.  

Pit didn’t reach him before he hit the ground, but he still insisted on trying to loop his arms under the old man’s.  

“Got ya boss, s’okay, don’t worry, I won’t tell no one!” Pit urged, trying to help the man to his feet.  

The Big Boss just brushed him away, exhaling and instead turning his attention to the bloody handle of his cane.  

“Clean up,” is all the man said to Pit as he fetched a rag where it was tucked into his trousers around the belt.  

I shakily sunk to the floor and pulled Mary close to me as I watched the Big Boss clean his weapon, and Pit clean the floor. The moist, squelching sounds of meat and blood against meat and rock made me want to chunder, but I focused instead on the smell of Mary’s hair and the way the Big Boss wiped away drying blood with a mix of pressure and liquid spit. 

Someone had welded brass knuckles to the inside of the curve of the cane, with a thin razor lining the bumps of the brassies. It was quite a beautiful tool. I couldn’t help but stare- who had thought of such a device? 

The Big Boss caught me staring. He didn’t smile, but his posture remained relaxed and easy.  

“C’mere. You and the kid. I won’t bite,” he said. 

 _No, you claw_ , I wanted to say, but I managed to start shuffling forward on my bare knees instead.  

Mary whined and fussed when I began to move away. I tried to reassure her. Tried to wrap my arms around her and pick her up... but that just got her screaming bloody murder. The clever girl had recognized violence, and didn’t want to get any closer. I couldn’t blame her. I didn’t want to soil my only boots with blood, either.  

She cawed loudly in my ear when began slowly dragging her in the direction of the Big Boss, and her little face was red and grubby with tears. I could only roughly wipe them away with my thumbs.  

“C’mon, c’mon, none o’that, we gotta go, now. Big Boss wants to talk,” I pleaded with her, but there was a limit to her reasonability.  

Fear had taken her, and frustration had taken me. Tears began burning my eyes, too.  

“Please,” I begged her, “Ya gotta listen. C’mon, Mary, you’ll get us both killed! Oh, would ya just  _stop_ \--” 

“Girlie.” 

I briskly wiped my eyes as I turned to look at the Big Boss. He was holding out something to me.  

A part of me didn’t want to fetch it, but I knew I didn’t have much of a choice. I took Mary by the shoulders, forced her down onto the bum, and slowly rat-crawled my way towards him.  

“Ya never answered me,” he said, surprisingly softly. “You here to help?” 

I reached out to take the package in his hands. It was soft, wrapped in fabric, but there was something hard within. He prompted me to unwrap it with a cocking of his chin. I was expecting something nasty, like dried out ears or tongues or preserved eyeballs, held my breath... but it was just dried snake bites, strictly for eating. 

I hesitated. He nodded.  

I stared at him as I eagerly stuffed a salty-delicious, crunchy mouthful of lizard into my mouth. He was patient with me, and let me shovel mouthful after mouthful past my teeth. Before long, I heard Mary chirping at me and felt her soft palms slapping me around the shoulders. Poor hungry thing. She ended up in my lap, being fed mashed up lizard bits too. One bite for me, one for her.  

We finished his package of lizard, and it took me a while after that to think of answering his question. I could only shift under his gaze as he lifted a painted eyebrow at me.  

“Uh... I-I don’t really know. I just catch pups,” I said. 

The Big Boss’ lips curled in something like a stifled grin. He pointed to Mary, and the enthusiastic little girl grasped his digit, which he couldn’t help but enthusiastically wriggle under her fingers. 

“You can wrap up nappies, know how’ta feed ‘em...” he said.  

“Well, sure, but she ain’t mine. Her mother sent her up,” I said. 

“I know,” he said, and it was my turn to raise my brow. 

That made him laugh at me. It was strange. Where was the truth to the rumors I’d heard? Where was the man who would cut off the heads of any Wretch who would cross his path? Where was Furiosa? Hell, where was  _Joe_? 

“One of my boys was tellin’ me all about some Wretch rat with a girl she didn’t want on her hip who wanted a job just a few nights ago. Forgot about it.” 

He took his hand out of Mary’s and focused on me. He prodded me with the cane in his other hand. 

“Now, you’re here. And I need a Mother for some pups.”  

Even Pit paused in place and gaped at the Big Boss. Was he _insane_? 

“...fuckin’ lunatic,” I scoffed.  

He didn’t want my work. He was desperate. He was _very_ desperate. Besides, I didn’t want to take care of a bunch of kids. I could barely take care of Mary! I had a job. I was desperate, but surely someone needed a midwife.  _Folks’re_ _always pregnant_. Maude said as much.  

The Big Boss tilted his head at me, mock misunderstanding, before moving his cane in his hand once more. I swear I saw my life flash before my damn eyes, flinched too, but he did not use the tool on me. Instead, he leaned over with a harsh groan. I wanted to see what was under his bandages, but I wasn’t about to peek. 

With a deft man that was unseen in men half his age, the Big Boss prodded through the mess Pit was scooping into a waiting bucket with his bare hands. Pit and eye made concerned and confused eye contact, but the point of the Big Boss’ journey through the grease was made clear when he grunted harshly and started slowly pulling the cane back. 

Being dragged through the filth was my tiny knife, which I had forgotten about in the chaos. I instinctively lurched for it, but the Big Boss took a moment to wipe the blade and handle clean before handing it over.  

I touched his rough, ugly hand when he handed me my blade. We locked eyes. 

“I’m no lunatic. No one in their right mind would defend that kid if they didn’t really care,” he said.  

He briskly lowered his eyes and folded his arms across his chest.  

“Got some lonely, lonely little Pups in need. And ain’t no one here willing to cut off fingers and toes for ‘em.” 

I turned my eyes away, too, turning into the reflection of my blade. My reflection was muddled. I couldn’t see a damned thing.  

Itwas Mary’s little fingers reaching for the blade that turned my attention back to reality. All I could do was grab it and stuff it under my tunic, where I knew it would stay.

When I looked back at the Big Boss, he was clearing his throat at me. He knew I had no choice. I knew so, too. 

I never said yes. But while Pit shoveled meat and the buzzing of insistent flies filled our ears, the Big Boss pulled out another package from his pocket. More meat.  

We split a piece.  

Eating had never felt so strange. 


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush meets a Wife and gets very enthusiastic about it.

Though I certainly would never be as strong as any of the well-fed war-machines that were the War Boys, even one as soft and gentle as Pit, I could never imagine myself rolling over and taken what was given to me like car in the shop. Being on auto-drive was necessary for my survival; taking things into my own hands, at my own accord, would be the only way I could make a name for myself here.

Once I had regained some more strength and eaten, I was able to rip the hook-shaped needle from the surface of my skin once Pit had looked away from me, distracting himself with the sight of a pretty green-clad nurse and his swollen chest muscles. It hurt enough to make me pierce my lower lip with my teeth, but somehow, in all of his mediocreness, Pit didn’t notice. I was thankful for his youth and inability to concentrate when faced with distant possibility of sex. What a silly pup.

My success in freeing myself from the bindings of the Blood Shed did not last long- the blood seeping through my shirt was a dead giveaway to what I had done, and soon Pit was panicking and trying to stifle the blood with his own bare hands. I managed to shove him away with a few well-placed palms to the chin, and after realizing I wasn’t pleased with him, he sat back crossed-legged and lowered his eyes. War Boys were trainable, if not a little difficult to work with.

I didn’t speak to Pit for a long while. He felt bad, I could tell, but no matter what he did, I didn’t really give him the time of day. He had _lost my shit_. He said that the Organic always worked like that- that he wouldn’t let you stay until you gave up something for a bed. He was awful sorry, he kept explaining, but I was real pale and he wasn’t sure I would make it through the night without the needle, so the boots and bag needed to go.

Pit wouldn’t give away my knife and paints, though. He thought it was stupid that I liked them so much, but since they were both beloved to me and useless to Organic, he didn’t try and trade them away. He still had some grey bits between his ears, it seemed. It gave me hope for a soft thing like him. At least he was clever.

By noon, I was up and walking perfectly, marching the length of the Blood Shed and observing silently. I had originally heard that the Blood Shed was a place of horrors- that Organic ran the place like a maggot farm, leaving bodies to rot in the sun and then feeding whatever was left to the other patients.

Maude had put ideas in my head.

The Big Momma Pup-Catcher, for the first time in a long time, was just wrong.

The place was spotless, for one thing, _unsettlingly_ so. Despite it all being too cramped for the space and a little rank-smelling, it was free of roaches and lizards and rats and anything that bit. Nurses wore sort-of uniforms, and patients looked comfortable, all tucked onto towels and wrapped in blankets. All had food. All had aqua cola. All had attention.

The fact that made my head spin was the complete and utter lack of War Boys.

Besides Pit, who had earned both odd looks and a handful of backhanded comments, everyone was a wretch or Citadel-born. There was no white paint, no scars, no fighting or scratching or screaming. It was peaceful.

I hated it.

“Don’t get it,” I said, and Pit (who had been trailing behind me like a stomped snake for hours) instantly jumped to attention, stumbling up to stand beside me.

“Don’t get what?” he said, worriedly twining his hands, scared to be brushed off again.

I didn’t answer, but I gave him a reassured pat on the arm. He was free from my jailing silence. I heard him snuffle with appreciation, and to my surprise, he reached for my hand.

I hesitated for a second, but took it, and in that moment realized that he probably wouldn’t even mind if he got kicked off of his crew and had to find new work. He liked time with me. I glanced back at him, and he was smiling, open-mouthed, and staring down at our clasped hands.

Without even giving me a second to question his stupid expression, he eagerly raised my hand to his face and rubbed his scarred cheeks against my knuckles. I tried to pull away, but he was greedily strong and kept my arm in its place.

“Soft,” he marvelled, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Those are my baby-catchers! Quit ruinin’ the merchandise with your mediocre rough face!”  

“Will not! I saved your life, smeg!”

“And sold my shit!”

“To _save your life_!”

I laughed, hard, and Pit did too. Mother above, _we were wrecked_.

Around us, a cacophony of eager cries and excited greetings drowned out our laughter. I guarantee that we wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t seen the Woman on Fire.

I managed to wheeze in a breath when I caught sight of the Wife, and when she caught sight of me, I forced myself to stand up straight after being doubled over.

Shit, shit, shit, fuck, _shit_ —she was right there. _Right there_. I had practically been in her damned arms a handful of hours ago, and now, here she was, strolling about and greeting her patients with a smile that could stop a sandstorm in its trail. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my entire life.

She wore green, as her other nurses did, but bore an embroidered blanket-like cloak around her shoulders, one that nearly brushed the ground. Industrial work boots popped out from beneath her long, dark skirts as she ghosted along, lovingly leaning over cots to speak to the incapacitated, her stunning hair dangling just inches from their faces. She looked like a moving torch, a torch with sympathetic eyes that kept looking over _right at me_.

Pit had let go of my hand a while ago. It seemed that when he had noticed the Wife looking at us, he had bowed his head and clasped his hands, leaving his fingers stretched out towards the heavens. I recognized that symbol- I had seen other War Boys do it, before heading out on supply runs. He was praying to his god, it seemed, whatever strange god those men worshipped.

I didn’t have a symbol to make at the Wife, and I didn’t have enough time to put on my paints. When she came over, I just _stood there_. Stupid Rush, stupid mediocre Rush.

“You look better,” she said, voice melodic and soothing. However, her smile quickly faded at the sight of my blood-soaked shirt. She worriedly grasped my arm, and I think I melted instantly. I didn’t know where I was anymore, and I didn’t care. I wanted her to touch me until I _died_.

“Are you alright? Did one of my nurses do that?” she asked, and thankfully enough I had half a mind to casually remove her hand from my collar. If it had stayed there too long, I think I would have thrown myself at her and shouted ‘ _take me_ ’.

“No, I did,” I said, trying to be as cool and calm as possible, but my entire body buzzed as we held hands. I didn’t know what the fuck Valhalla was, but damn it, _I was there_. “I, uh… I felt better and I wanted t’walk around.”

“Oh, friend, you should have just asked,” she said with a sad smile. “I never did get your name. If you’ll be staying with us, I’d like to know what to yell if you get into any more trouble.”

I laughed weakly. If she screamed my name in _any_ context, I think I’d die happy.

“Rush. M’name’s Rush.”

“Your name’s _what_?” Pit snorted, and my face burned with shame. Capable was so much more shine than _Rush_. Shit, shit, fuck, shit—

“Good name. Strong name. You work fast, Rush?”

My knees were getting weak, and I couldn’t tell if it was illness or my grey bits completely scrambling at the sight of seeing her spell my name with her lips.

I nodded feverishly. “Y-Yeah, yeah! Mmm-hmm, fastest, most effective pup-catcher this side of the Wasteland.”

Her eyebrows raised with surprise, and what I hoped to be a little bit of interest. “Pup-catcher? Well, that explains the soft hands! You looking for a job, Miss Rush?”

I grinned, but pulled back the smile a little. My teeth were piss-yellow compared to hers. I wondered what Maude might think of a beauty like her.

The Wife noticed my discomfort and tried smiling again, but that just made me feel worse. I took a step back and ducked my head. Her pretty face was getting a little intimidating, now. I wasn’t used to looking at people like her. I wasn’t used to _all of this_ , the cleanliness and the overall decentness.

I needed _rough_ work. Rougher work than the Woman on Fire could ever give me. Wasteland work.

“I can give you work,” she tried, softer this time. “There are a lot more pregnancies up here than you might think. You’d be very useful to us.”

“It ain’t that,” I muttered, glancing back up at her. “It’s jus’… I made a promise t’ some War Boys that I would help ‘em. The Fury Road survivors. I-I can help with the pregnant ladies, but… I need to help the others too.”

_Bullshit_ , the lot of it. I just didn’t want to get beaten again. I knew my reputation amid the War Boy community was already shot and buried from my fight with the gate-keeper. I needed to step up again, or I wouldn’t last another month, tiny and loud as I was. Helping my enemies might be the only thing keeping me from getting absolutely slaughtered.

I thought of Jericho- the only thing that kept that fucker away from me was giving him half my water. If that worked then, then giving the Jericho’s of the Citadel a sip from my canteen would have to do.

The Wife furrowed her brows, and suddenly, she aged before my eyes. She looked less like a pretty girl and more like a proud woman.

“You aren’t well. I don’t feel comfortable sticking you with them. There’s a reason they aren’t mingling with the other patients. I know these boys, I _love_ these boys, but if you’re not careful, they’ll bite and scratch.”

I furrowed my brows right back at her and puffed up, which ached my ribs, but I didn’t dare falter. “I’ve already gotten my beatings. A few more won’t hurt.”

The Wife shook her head at me and frowned, hard. “When you came here, you were almost dead. _It isn’t safe_.”

She was only trying to protect me, but somehow, I felt even more insulted than I had been after I had been kicked to near-dying. Without thinking, I pointed down at the stone ground, ignoring the violent sting and fresh trickle of blood blooming just below my shoulder. My eyes were hard, and I despite my bare face, I felt painted to perfection.

“I was almost dead down there, too. Up here, it ain’t more dangerous, it’s just _different_. Snake bite or bullet, you still get fucked either way. If the only way I can keep myself from getting shit on up here is a few bruises, then damn it, I will turn black and blue if it means keeping my head. My name around here is _fucking shit_ , and I need to fix that. Maybe you don’t understand, but if I don’t get bruised, then I will get buried. Make sense, _Wife_?”

I had fucked up. I know I had. The Wife set her shoulders and became dark, the look crossing her eyes reminding me of the way Maude would glare at me after she had lost a pup or a mother. I stepped back, and I could hear Pit struggling to think of an excuse for my anger; the Wife shut him up with a raise of her delicate hand.

“…you will stay here and meet with Organic tonight. If you call me Wife _one more time_ , I will see you down the Lift myself. Is that clear?”

A chance. Relief washed over me, but I stayed steely. I decided I very much liked this Wife.

“Okay. Tonight, then.”

Despite her anger, I saw the gleam of enthusiasm twinkle in her pale eyes. She nodded at me.

“Welcome to the Citadel, Miss Rush.”


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wild Lizard King appears.

One day, in thousands of days from now, if I ever returned to the Wasteland, perhaps the folks down there would have me become what they called a Moral Banker. While the fire, if we had the chance to have one, popped and sang, wretches from the furthest reaches of the Wasteland would come and hear of my trials. Moral Bankers, unlike History Men, did not carry on particular information so much as they did transfer lessons: from the moment one had a sharp enough memory and a long enough life, they would become informal Moral Bankers. Their nights of stories could last hundreds of days; most died before they could finish recounting the tales of their lives. My folks always said that losing a Moral Banker was like losing a canteen of cool aqua cola- a tragedy in the short term, but a new lesson in itself in the long run. Life went on. We went on.

When I tied my headband about my forehead again, something that felt both old and new, and prepared to meet one of the characters of my childhood nightmares, I found comfort in imagining my prosperous future career as a Moral Banker, and how I would be required to remember everything in order to be a success. I was to witness everything, remember the worst and keep it sharp in my mind’s eye, if I could. Maude taught me had to catch pups in a time where barely any were being born. Why insist on such a useless way to pass my time? Perhaps she knew that something was coming, and wanted me to be ready.

In my few days in the Citadel, I often recounted the many things I had been taught by the many folks I had met here. As I sat on my mat and mixed together a fresh batch of paint, both yellow and red, I thought about all the problems I could have avoided if I had been a little more careful. Under the delicate pads of my soft fingers, fingers blessed by a Wife and a War Boy, I crossed them off in my mind as I coloured in my face.

Yellow paint down the scars under my prominent cheekbones, for the putrid yellow sand of the Wasteland and the burn of the sun in my eyes during my first trip up on the Lift.

Red paint over the discoloration across my Cupid’s bow and up the thin cicatrix on my nose, for the taste and smell of my own blood upon my first Citadel-style beating.

An orange mixture of the two in the middle of my mouth, for the first words I had ever spoken to gentlehearted Pit, who watched me intently decorate myself from my bedside.

A list of coincidences had both saved and ruined my first few days at the Citadel- while they had kept me alive, which was more than I could ever ask for in such a horrid place, they had also ruined any inkling of a reputation I had by sending me illness and starvation. I needed to perform well. I could not allow myself, in this new, terrifying reality of mine, to be jerked around like a manual gearstick, not while the memory of Maude still lingered in my mind. I could not have the image of her scolding me in my own mediocre mind every night.

In this new world, I would become the Big Momma Pup-Catcher. It was the only way to make Pa proud.

Trembling in my cot, I feared that my body might collapse right under me if I stood. However, Pit offered me his arm when I set my bare feet on the floor and rose to my knees. I felt very old, and very naïve. I did not like the contrast.

“You look real chrome,” Pit said, though I could tell by his flat tone that he didn’t really mean it. I was too anxious to call him out on it, though. He was only trying to be helpful.

“You keep saying that word,” I said absently, righting my skirts and tucking in my ratty, bloodied blouse. I would have had a spare, in my knapsack, but after all my provisions had gone to the Organic, I didn’t have many options. “Don’t understand it.”

“Chrome?” he asked, and when I nodded, he puffed out a little breath. No one had probably ever asked him the meaning behind that shiny word of his. As we walked, he furrowed his brows in a concentration I hadn’t really seen from him.

“Chrome… Chrome means shiniest of shine. Best of the best. Kami-crazy out-of-this-world wild and amazing,” he said, and I laughed, but it came out shallow. I saw on his face that he knew my giggle was a lie, too. I liked our mutual understanding of one-another. We could push each-other’s buttons about fibbing some other time.

Like a true War Boy bodyguard, he walked me to the end of the hall, where the Wife had told me to wait for the Organic. I didn’t want to leave Pit; I wasn’t used to doing such things alone.

Around us, nearly the entire ward was asleep, and the only thing that had allowed me to mix my paints and talk with Pit were a handful of scattered oil lamps. In truth, they fascinated me- they would be so useful for catching pups in the dark, instead of having to light a fire outside the mother’s tent and leave the flaps open to see enough. Yes, if I ever went back, I would bring along some shiny oil lamps. Maude would sure find them chrome.

“…you’re a good Boy, Pit,” I said, interrupting the silence and speaking in a low tone, as if I were telling him a secret.

I reached out and took his hand. I was wearing my glove again, to avoid my hands getting soiled, but I was glad to feel the squeeze of his hand in mine, not too hard. He was such a good learner. If he weren’t so soft, he might get some black paint on his forehead, like I had seen some other, tougher Boys have. I wondered what his ambitions were. I wondered if War Boys had any at all.

I glanced up at him, and though he stared straight ahead, I could see the gleam of tears in his eyes. It reminded me of Pa, on that faithful night, and his love of that trinket and of his brand-new title.

Without speaking, I released his hand, and deftly reached into the pocket on my leg, filled with my powders; I pulled off the glove of my free hand with my teeth, and worked quickly, sticking my thumb in my mouth and giving it a good suck. Pit had noticed me, at this point, and though his expression got that confused quality I often saw him wearing, he stayed silent.

I stuck my wet thumb into the red powder and, without thinking, reached out and began tracing a circle on Pit’s left pectoral with the chunky paint. It was a little lopsided, and the three-armed star seemed a lick too small, but the image was clear. Even Pit seemed to recognize it, somehow, and I heard him snort back some snot and clumsily wipe his face. Always crying, that pup.

“You wear that and you think of me, yeah, Mercedes Man? Makes you look chrome.”

Pit stared into me for what seemed like hours. I could tell he wanted to do something, but I’m afraid War Boys weren’t very good with self-expression. So, when he heard the slam of a door just beyond the fork in the hall just before us, he scrubbed his face one more time and hurried off, tugging up his loose pants as he went along and disappearing into the dark.

“That your fuck-buddy? Bit young for’ya, don’t’cha think?”

At my side, where Pit had stood just moments before, the Organic Mechanic in all his rusted glory leaned in the doorway and watched me move in the dim light. My eyes, adapted to working in the dark, also ran along him. He looked rather healthy, for a man in what looked to be deep in his 15000 days. He lacked patches of hair on his head, though by odd location of the tufts of remaining hair, I could tell that it probably wasn’t disease, as the beard on his face was still dark and lush. He work dark, brown clothing over his thicker set body, and he had even scrounged together a fine apron and makeshift bullet belt in which to stuff various tools, like scissors and what looked to be needles. He was hardly a thing of terror, but neither were snakes, at first glance, slithering on their bellies. I just had to wait and find out where he hid his venom.

When I dared step closer to him, the Organic reached over and pinched the meager fat of my arms, before moving to grab my face, forcing my mouth open to look at my molars. I instinctively tensed, and though I didn’t pull away, he chuckled at the sight of the whites of my eyes.

“A bit tiny for a job like this one, eh? A wretch pup-catcher workin’ with War Boys. Sisters must be gettin’ desperate for new help,” he said, leaning into my face to look at my scars. When he threatened to wipe at my paint with his hairy fingers, I yanked my face away and scowled.

“They ain’t _desperate_ ,” I spat, touching the place on my jaw where his fingers had locked hard around my face. “Couldn’t say the same ‘bout you though, Organic. Stealin’ folks’ things for room and board. Thought y’were supposed to be some war hero, not some fattened-up scavenger. You ain’t what I was expectin’.”

Organic’s face wilted and withered before my eyes. He seemed to have expected my defiance, but did not know I would be so quick to snap and make a mark on what I assumed to be quite the fragile ego.

“That life in y’won’t last long,” he rasped, wagging a knowing finger at me before turning to lead me down the left fork in the hall. His words, despite them being nothing more than a chiding warning, left me absolutely shaken. I had been through too much already to assume what he was saying was true. If I let every little grain of sand rub me the wrong way, I would have been skinned alive long ago.

The walk, surprisingly, was not long. The hallway, which led to a single, ominous wooden door, was lit with nothing but a handful of half-used torches on spires, pinned into the rock walls. There were no oil lamps to be found here. The feeling I got about the place was already a bad one. When we reached the door, Organic did not even turn to warn me- if I ever become a Moral Banker, this would be where I started my story.

The stench of shit and piss rose in the air like thick clouds, with such a fierce burn that I struggled to keep my eyes open. I quickly struggled to pull my shirt, stiff with dried blood, above my nose, which did barely anything to mask the smell. I comforted myself in the fact that I had known worse. Birth smelt this way, sometimes, if the mother shat herself in the tent. I had known such things.

I stepped in after Organic and shut the door. The other patients down the hall did not deserve to smell as much as I had, lest they wanted to get sicker. To my disdain, after the smell had been forced from my mind by my own sheer willpower, a new assault of the senses gave my mind whiplash.

Stacked beside one-another like strips of dried jerky, men in cracked white paint wailed and squirmed for their half-lives. Most could not lift their heads above the level of their chests. Those who could, along with the handful of them that were sitting up, stared at me with gazes of lightning and flame. I followed Organic to the other end of the room, which may have been large once, but seemed miniature when it was so stuffed with people. The scent and the sound made we want to heave.

As I shuffled past the awoken crowd, men grabbed at my skirts and ankles, some accusing and others begging for help. I recoiled from the burning scratches of their fingernails- one stronger man even tried to bite me, but Organic kicked him onto his back with the sole of his boot and hurried me along.

The lot of them were in unspeakable condition. I had never waded through so much blood and sick and hair in my life, not even during the most violent of births. Laying on the bare stone floor, some men were wrapped in cloth bandages from near head-to-toe, while others attempted to hobble about in the small space on nothing more than the palms of their bare hands, the stumps of what used to be legs dragging limply behind them. I could see, over the see of whites and reds and browns, the figure of a man sobbing over a limp body, which looked as if it were missing half of the skin of its face; maggots crawled from the body’s cheek. I tasted vomit, but swallowed hard. No use sickening this place up more than it already was.

“Sister? You here to help, Sister?”

A voice of authority rang out over the bellowing of his cabinmates, and though I knew Organic was probably leading me about to show me where I would be sleeping for the night, I couldn’t ignore the voice. I turned my head back towards the desert of skulls, and saw one man’s hand shoot up desperately in the moving mass grave.

I waded back through the puddles of human waste and found the man, who was kneeling on the ground and looking over a shivering body. As I kneeled at his side, I could feel dozens feverishly crawling towards me, surrounding me, at my back and ribs. Their sour breaths made my head spin, but I turned my attention to the man that had called me family.

He was older, this stranger, older than even Organic, and sported more scars on his body than I had ever seen, so many that I couldn’t distinguish wrinkle from cut. His chest and head were wrapped, but he could still see through one aging eye. He looked calm, despite the chaos. He reminded me of Pa.

He reached out his hand to me, and I took it in my gloved one. He was reassuring me, in his own way, with a finger-crushing squeeze that took my breath away.

“You come to make sure we’re still croakin’, Sister?” he asked, and the men around me leaned in hard. I looked at their faces- they were all in desperate need of shaves, and fresh coats of paint, food, and some decent aqua cola.

Some of them were not trusting. I could tell they only stayed close to see if I would punch it and veer off, gas pedal floored. Others, the ones in worse condition, had no choice but to look at me and hope. I could feel dozens of hands clinging to my clothes and touching my skin. Without so much paint, they looked just like the Wretched, like the wanderers of the long Wasteland summers. I suppose, in a way, they were.

I took my hand away from the man’s and peeled away my gloves. They needed the softness more than I did.

I waddled over to the shivering man on the floor. Though his eyes were open, I could tell he saw nothing through them. He was heavily scarred, like all the others, sporting staples in his cheeks where the cuts didn’t completely heal and decorative markings along his lower belly and hips, as well as the traditional War Boy decorations on his arms. His face, despite the marks, seemed in decent condition; the tumour lingering above his right brow, one just like my Mary had, was keeping his right eye lazy and red, but he might still be able to use it, if he lived long enough to get better.

The biggest concern was his arm and leg.

The entire left half of his body below the elbow was utterly fucked. His arm was shredded, and by the looks of it, he had lost a foot, too. I didn’t even dare pick away at the scraps of his trousers, which had fused to the open wound on his thigh and calf completely. There was puss everywhere; he smelled like rotting flesh in the midday sun. I found I didn’t much care.

In my stupidity, I reached out and gathered him in my arms. I didn’t care what sickness he probably had; I knew I wouldn’t be ill, at least not as ill as he. Like Maude would say: some things, _you just damn know._

He squirmed irritably and made angry grunting noises despite his lack of full consciousness. I knew I couldn’t be hurting him- his bad arm and leg weren’t being disrupted at all. The bastard seemingly just didn’t want to be touched! It surprised me that he could even move at all, especially around his hips, but soon, he was bucking with all his might, and I knew that if I dropped him, I would be broken by his loyal cabinmates, who watched me like crows watched wrecks for bodies.

I had to think fast. I had too much on the line, and I was not going to let some bitter, half-limbless smeg get me kicked out of the place the Wife had insisted I was too weak for.

Fuck gentility. This Boy needed more convincing than soft hands.

I grit my teeth and gave a growl of my own as I swung my leg up and over his bandaged torso. Maude would not be happy. I could hear her in my mind, scolding me. _The patient’s always right- if ‘e wants t’buck, then back off and let’im buck, girly!_ I couldn’t listen right now. Not when I had an audience of potential death-machines.

 _Wham_. The fucker’s shoulders slammed against the pissy floor as I put as much weight as I could on him without having him scream. He needed to calm down—no, I needed to show that _I_ could calm him down.

”Stronger than I thought!” the older man chuckled, and my heart dropped in my chest. This was all just another test. Another nurse they were trying to get off their turf.

The man below me must have been one hell of a fighter in his hay-day. It looked like he still was. 

His sleepy eyes focused on my face, if only for a fraction of a moment. We locked gazes, both of us unrelenting- a hush fell over the relatively raucous crowd. Someone had to give, and I would not let it be me. 

A sudden sharp pain in the flesh of my own exposed lower back made me yelp; the War Boys around me guffawed at the sight. The little smeg-faced ass under me was digging his damned broken nails into me! I refused to move, especially when he smiled drunkedly at me and bared his teeth. _Assshole_.

“Fighter, ain’t ‘ya?!” I groaned, feeling fresh beads of blood beginning to trickle down my back and soak the waist of my skirts. The older man behind me scooted closer to get a better look at the smeg wrestling with me so hard.

“Fightin’?” the older man said, reaching to tug hard on a strand of my loosening hair. “Girly, this is barely an afternoon drive for this bastard.”

“Fuckers, the lot o’you,” I spat at the injured man, who, if anything, dug his nails even harder into my back and arched his spine at me. His crewmembers around him positively died of laughter at my anguished scream, and for a moment, the entire War Boy Blood Shed beamed.

It seemed they were going to like me here. 


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Nasty Lizard King loses his breath and Rush talks about balls.

I woke from sleep on my second morning of Wasteland work to a shocking lack of death.

The air of the early morning was crisp, and though I was relieved to find the toxic scent of human excrement was stifled due to the desert chill, the osnaburg mat at my back that the Organic had left me to use as a temporary mattress had irritated my calves and arms. The cradle of sand and stolen cotton were nowhere to be found, and to my great disappointment, I had no opportunity to watch the sun rise. The room in which I would spending the next hundreds of days had no view of the outside. I mourned the loss of the sun on my tan skin, and wondered if I would look as pale as Organic by the time my trials here had been overcome.

The harsh clanging of a bare palm against a metal pot made my skin jump; my elbows slid in the puddle of piss I had left behind at my bedside earlier that night. I would have surely cursed, but the piercing of Organic’s shrill voice through the thick blanket of the growing heat distracted my senses.

Into the morning, I limped, my bare feet smacking against the raw floors, the first one up besides my boss, who had a look in his eye like he had been screwed with an exhaust pipe. Around us, the men who could move began hollering and hooting, scrambling with their trousers and hurrying to wake their mates. In the faint light, I could only see their heads. Scraggly crops of brown, blonde, and black hair poked up from their white-painted roots, unkempt and utterly neglected to the point of unnatural stiffness. Only the old man with the scars and folds was bald, and I could tell from the shiny smoothness of his head that it was completely natural.

Men, who had yesterday been too weak to rise from their cots and look me in the eye, wearily rolled onto their sides towards Organic. Those who could move made a shoving, spitting half-circle around the pair of us. The oldest man was at the front of the group, a handful of steps in front of Organic. No one fought or clawed at him. No one dared even look.

He acknowledged me with a bow of his head, but did not do the same to Organic, who was distractedly counting the writhing bodies beneath his breath, tapping at the air as the numbers grew. I furrowed my brows at the old man, who opened his mouth and pointed feverishly at his tongue. _Ration time_.

A wash of fear silenced by grumbling stomach as I watched the Organic lift the lid of the metal pot tucked under his elbow- the scent of cooked meat got the entire room rattling, but no one moved except me. I scrambled backwards, out of the ring of Boys. I knew better than to be caught in the middle of a vulture-fight over carcasses. I’d wait for my turn to gnaw on the bones. My back pressed against the far back wall, and like a mirage, I watched the grand majority of the shamed War Boys freeze as their esteemed old man approached and gazed into the pot. He took his time, like Pa did when sorting through his sellable scraps, and fished out a prize of three juicy, headless snakes.

“Y’hungry, girly?” he shouted to me, and the dark, oily eyes of his crew all landed my painted face. I swallowed hard.

I had shown my lack of patience with the half-limbless Boy, along with my willingness to get fighty. Like a Mill Rat, I had to push forward if I wanted any progress. I raised my chin at the elderly man.

“Sure, I am,” I said, and even Organic reared his ugly head to flare his nostrils at me. The group rattled and hissed, smothered lizards in a canvas bag, and though my pulse would have otherwise been too rapid to record, the old man’s calmness reassured the slowing beat in my chest.

“ _Kill your engines_ , then, all’o ya!” he bellowed, though I could tell he was not upset. He didn’t need to work himself into a fit in order to get his crew to behave. With a crack of vocal thunder, the room fell silent and still, save Organic’s phlegmy chuckle, and the ashen War Boys bitterly bit their bleeding mouths and scuffed their bare feet. The change of mood, quick as a blue sky after a storm, made me shiver. The old thing had some guzzoline in him, after all.

He strode towards me and, snake between his lips, held out the skinniest reptile and shook it a little, as if to cool it for me.

“…didn’t need t’do tha’,” I said, deep below my breath, hesitantly taking the steaming meat. “Real shine o’you.”

He shrugged my compliment off with a wave of his calloused hand. “Naw. Jus’ don’t wan’ya dead, is all.”

With the old man’s prized retrieved, and our shared return to his bunk, the Boys (with a nonverbal cue that I had no idea how they had received and understood) savagely consumed the Organic in a cloud of cracked paint and flying hands, their deep voices aggressively ricocheting from wall to wall upon impact. While Organic was sturdy enough in build to withstand the accidentally-purposeful punches and the absentminded tossing off his weight through the crowd, I could see what the old man meant. If I had been there, fighting for my rations, I would have _become_ rations. I could imagine my ribs snapping under the weight of a War Boy’s holed boot and them fighting over who got roasting claim over my soft hands first.

The offer of food had not been a friendly gesture, but protection. I’m sure the old man didn’t want another decomposing body stinking this place up.

As we ate, cross-legged and hunched, I watched the old man. His body condition, despite it having withered with age, was still surprisingly strong- big biceps and shoulders, someone who was forced to haul more than his body weight around on a constant basis. Pa had those arms, as a scavenger, but he seemed too dignified for that sort of dirty work. The multiple tumours littering his neck, and his sagging lower lip, which dragged along as he chewed, were impressive in the worst of ways. I couldn’t fathom how he had survived this long.

The old man caught my lingering eyes and chuckled a little, baring his teeth in a stiff smile.

“Haven’t had a girl look’a me like you are ‘na long time,” he said, happier than a nursed pup, scouring the growing stubble on his chin with his knuckles. He looked uncomfortable.

“Old, but not rusted, you are,” I said between bites of snake. Tasteless and pale, like I would soon be, like this old man already was. “Shit spot t’end up in, mate. Sorry.”

He snorted at me, and with his free arm, gave me a hard shove in the shoulder. I grimaced at the ripple of pain shooting up my neck, but the unimpressed side-eye he shot at me wiped the complaintive expression from my face.

“Ain’t gonna die, girly,” he scoffed, sticking his oily fingers between his lips and sucking away the meager juices the snake had left behind. “Not’n this busted place.”

“Hope y’won’t,” I grumbled, the fading scent of meat beginning to give way to the all-too-natural stench of the room. “I wouldn’t wan’ya t’die up Joe’s sweaty ass-crack.”

The old man might have made a face at me, but due to his extensive facial bandages, all he could do was shake his head and wipe his forehead with the back of his forearm, slow and methodical. My stomach dropped, and though I feared a flying smack across the cheek, I remained as aloof as possible. I had lived long enough to know my abusers before I even learned their names. No, he did not yet make me fear.

When I was a very young pup, and was still tiny enough to be coddled when I fussed, Pa used tell me that the problems of all the folks in the Wasteland were be carried on the hot desert wind like miniscule grains of sand. If exposed to enough storms, my ears and eyes would be filled with the irritation that accompanied the breeze; no matter how safe I thought I was, in the caress of the wind, I was to always recover and find shelter, lest I wished to be choked. Only from the fleeting moments of shelter in the storm, he said, could I see how long it would take to pass.

I shuffled closer to the old man and peered into his distracted eyes; they were a brilliant green, behind the thin bandages.

“…I don’t want t’die ‘ere, either,” I said, and though I could tell his thoughts were still sharp with the hatred of my words, he intently turned to me. “What d’I do, if I don’t want t’die?”

The old man regarded me. His eyes were liked broken glass, worn out and not to be trusted around their sharp edges. They reminded me of my place here, like a rat under the gleam of a blade. Despite the sweltering heat and humidity of the place, his attention made my fingers beneath my gloves cool. I shivered further as his eyes drew across my childlike frame- the only thing I had to show for my womanhood were my breasts, swollen but milkless. I did not need to see his gearstick to know of his manliness.

Here, in the Blood Shed of Blood Sheds, my body quivered and collapsed as it had never done during my thousands of days in the Wasteland. Even in illness could these men break me into a form they preferred to lay their eyes on- my words meant nothing here.

My lips, my throat, my tongue, they had been my weapons in a world where I was surrounded by beggars. When those around me spoke, I was taught to holler. This new world was too loud to be hollered over, full of sandstorms but lacking shelter. How long would it take me to drown?

The old man shifted to his knees and rose up. Pit might have offered me his hand, but he turned away with a flap of his clever fingers, motioning for me to follow. I had certainly thought Organic would have found something for me to do, by now, but I figured these first few days would be nothing but frustrated hours of tears and bruises. He was wise to a degree, that Organic, to leave me in my own misery. I would need to learn to bandage myself before I bandaged the strong.

I got to my feet and followed the old man. As I walked, I noticed the younger men, all in conditions deplorable enough to make me willing to waste a few bullets and put them out of their misery, bared their teeth at me and hummed when I curled in upon myself. As they chewed on their morning meal, smacking their lips and baring their pink gums, I figured what they thinking: _Linger too long, and we’ll get you too._

Even in my advancing years, I recall the days of my Pa’s reign as Mercedes Man- people went through the grueling effort of moving their tents under the scowl of the sun, in a desperate effort to be closer to him. It seemed that simple folks thought that if they close enough to power, it would rub off on them and cling like the shadow of dried mud. Here, people stayed out of the old man’s way. There were no greetings or pats on the back. The life-lusty War Boys had lost their collective motor’s spark. I knew that because, otherwise, I would have been dead.

I was herded back, by the old man’s volition, to the bedside of a man I had already met, and that deathlike chill returned to dance up my aching spine. Despite being bedridden, the smeg was still strangely mobile and quite strong. The sight of him made me huff, and the old man noticed and huffed with me, too.

“In my time,” he said, taking a careful seat beside his fellow Boy’s sleeping body, “there were two ways y’could deal with rust like him.” The old man patted the space beside him, but I didn’t obey. I didn’t want to get within five feet of that rot-smelling, grinning, _scratching_ little bastard. The raw, torn skin of my back had suffered the consequences of my boldness.

When I didn’t join him, the old man turned towards his fellow Boy, the one Organic didn’t even seem to drift by. The bandages keeping his arm from falling apart were yellow with age and pusslike secretions- the same went for his leg, though that also bore blood in the sickening mixture. He had torn out his stitches, that squirmy maggot. Unlike yesterday, his shivering and convulsions had reached the point of putting him in a near-comatose state. His entire body was glistening with a thin sheen of sweat, and upon closer inspection, I saw his eyes rolling helplessly beneath his veiny lids. He nearly made me feel bad for him. Nearly.

“And what were those?” I asked mildly, hovering by the fallen Boy’s feet. He needed a bandage change. My hands itched to help. It was like watching a pup suffocating around its own cord and daring to watch its face turn purple. Then again, he was _no_ pup. This man was pure goanna, and though I wasn’t afraid to sit on him again, I did not want another marring.

The old man glanced at me, leaned over, and did the unthinkable- he grabbed the sleeping man’s nose and pitched his nostrils tightly shut between his thumb and index finger. Instantly, I saw the sleeping man’s chest strain to let out his breath, and in my sympathy, the wind got knocked right out of me.

My heart leaped, and so did I; I jumped across the stranger’s good leg and recklessly tore the old man’s fingers away from his nose. Thankfully, the Boy did nothing but groan loudly in response to the disruption of his sleep.

“What the _fuck_ is wrong with you?!” I roared, listening to the Boy’s wheezing breaths and paying careful attention to the fretful tossing of his head. “Y’want me t’lose my job, huh? _Shit_ , man, _fuck_!”

The old man raised his hands defensively. “Alrigh’, alrigh’, so we don’t wan’im dead! Jus’ wanted t’make sure if we were ridin’ the same road, is all.”

“If ‘e dies, _I’ll_ be the one draggin’ his ass out o’this place!” I snarled.

When the old man reached out to touch the Boy again, I jumped and grabbed his wrist. I had seen the sandstorm; now, I had a feeling I knew where it was headed. If he had wanted to, the old man could have easily ripped his arm out of my hand and shoved me away, as he had done when he had both sat at his cot, but his intention wasn’t violence. He slowly pulled back and allowed me my space.

I hadn’t even realized my exposed tailbone was now pressing back into the War Boys ribs. He was cold. I would need to fix that, soon.

“In my time, there were two ways y’could deal with rust like him,” he began again, leaning forward on his knees so that we were only inches apart. His breath smelled horrid, but I accepted the closeness and leaned in too.

“Either y’get him outta your way,” he said, holding up his dangerous fingers, thumb and index, in the shape of a pistol, “or, you get him in your crew.”

“I’m a crew of one,” I said miserably, jutting my hand out at the dying War Boy in exasperation. “’E ain’t wakin’ up for shit. Even if ‘e _did_ , he’s gotta crew. I ain’t got no one up ‘ere.”

I thought of my Pit, and my Mary. I wanted to cry, but the old man was too busy mocking me for that. He tapped himself firmly in the chest and smiled.

“Told ya, _I still ain’t dead yet_!” he crowed, and the sight of the bold old man made me laugh a little. He was good for that, at least. He reached out and, with surprising gentility, tucked a loose strand of my dark hair up and under the edge of my head wrap.

“What d’I call ya, girly?” he asked, in a voice I had often heard Maude use around newborn pups. He had probably seen many War Boys that young, in his lifetime. I flapped my hands at him and pulled the loose strand back out, and he laughed, too. It was good to see him burning that guzzoline.

“Rush,” I said.

“Rush? Good name. War Boy name.”

“Yeah? You got a good War Boy name?”

“ _Sure_ , I do.” His tone mirrored my own. Teasing again. “They call me Ace. Old as Balls Ace.”

I wrinkled my nose playfully at him. “’M sure your balls ain’t so old, Ace.” I remember Pit talking about him, all excited-like, when he had first gotten hold of Mary. It seemed Old as Balls Ace was really a thing of legend.

Ace’s face lit up, and he eagerly reached down and grabbed at the crotch of his pants with new fervor. “You sure, girly? ‘Could have you count the wrinkles!”

I covered my eyes with my hand and gagged. Ace was disgusting. All these War Boys were disgusting.

Maude would love ‘em.


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush has her first War-Boy style toussle.

When I first began my apprenticeship under Maude and began to accompany her to various tents and settlements in order to witness proper pup deliveries, one of the first jobs I was meant to complete was that of feeding the mother during the birth, if only in order to keep her energy levels high enough to get the pup’s head out from her womanly canyon. While the woman rode out her contractions and gradually weakened, as they always did, I was sat at her side with a bowl of molasses in my lap, sweeping my sweetened fingers across her gums. Of course, there were those who clenched their jaws, but I quickly noticed those who resisted were near-always those who were rotting by the next mid-morning.

The Blood Shed’s temporary inhabitants seemed to defy this natural rule and prove what I had thought was truth wrong in the span of one complete moon cycle.

Despite their collective worsening conditions, the men, who’s total population I failed to count but established at around fifty, seemingly refused everything I could offer them, save their daily rations and aqua cola supply. While I was no as deft of hand with bandages and wrapping as the Organic, who could wrap a squirming War Boy up in the time it took for him to empty his bladder, I was sure I had a gentler hand. Though I attempted to be slow with them, it seemed that these men had no concept of propriety or quality- they would probably rather take a beaten-up cycle on half a tank of guzzoline into the desert over waiting a few days to get help, if only to feel the wind on their faces and the ground rumbling beneath the seats of their pants. When I helped, they spat. They smacked. They punched. I was dealing with a nest of albino rattlesnakes in the middle of their shed, and even though I offered them fresh mice, I was still hissed at on a daily basis.

My weariness, constant and unrelenting in intensity, took a toll on my patience. I had taken their punches for days before I began punching back. When they bruised my ribs, I bruised my knuckles. I pulled tight on wrappings when they yanked at my hair. I stuck my bare fingers into bullet wounds when they attempted to pluck my eyes out. Organic found my anger nothing less than a complete amusement, and that was the thing that gnawed at me the most.

He didn’t pull his weight like I did. His acceptance of a new nurse gave him an excuse to disappear for hours, returning with the smell of sex on his skin and his trousers low on his hips. I would let him have his pleasures, if he at least let me have mine, but he refused to let me out of the sickening place. The more suns I spent indoors, the less I cared about myself. I let my clothing get holed up and tattered, even more so than it already was, when the Boys decided they wanted to get up and under my skirts. I neglected the state of my lengthening hair, which was getting long and difficult to manage, even with the help of my hair wrap. My paints were all that remained; even then, they served as more of a bitter memory of Maude than as my cherished war paints. How could she send me to this place? How could she think anything up here could be better than it was with her?

The only one who seemed to find positive change in what I was experiencing and encouraged my rage was Ace. Unlike that first day, he no longer got me snakes and complimented my relative prettiness- I was forced to fight with the rest of the group for food, now, and had lost another tooth from a sharp elbow to my jaw. I got excessively thin, which Ace commented on ( _“Ain’t never gonna find’ya a man with those ribs, girly!”_ ), but never tried to fix. As far as he was concerned, my struggles were normal for a 'pup'. He could not coddle me. I had to find my own place in this world. I had been born at the bottom of the clutch of eggs, and I had to slither my way out from under those had had the privilege to have me laid on top.

My jaw ached something terrible as I kneeled over a basin of lukewarm aqua cola, violently scrubbing at bandages that would need to be hung up to dry. Despite everything, I still wore my gloves. Someone would have to give birth eventually. Someone would have to come get me. My hands would need to be soft.

If there was one positive thing that came out of my constant beatings and injuries, it was the _silence_. The War Boys no longer felt the need to holler at me as I walked past them- perhaps it was because they would get their fill of violence at every meal, hitting me until I bled, or my own increasingly aggressive behavior, but they kept quiet while I worked away from then, nowadays.

My routine became sublime in its thoughtless, repetitive nature. Breakfast; first bandage changes; bandage washings; lunch; a collective nap; second bandage changes; dinner; sleep. Any interruption was a hassle and jostled me up. I ached so much, and my body only had enough energy for what I was required to do, the slave-work I had brought upon myself in an attempt to find glory. What glory was there to be found in piss and shit and blood and tears?

I thought about the Wife often enough. I wondered if she would recognize me, now that I was nothing more than a stained, tough corpse. I missed the scent of her, her kind but stern words. She had warned me of my faith. She was looking out for my wellbeing, but I refused to listen to what she had to say. After getting beaten, my pride couldn’t take much more abuse. I had to prove I was alright, to _someone_ in this enormous place. _Chrome_ , as Pit would say. I didn’t hear that word around the Blood Shed much at all.

Next to the basin, Organic used the mud-coloured aqua cola to wash his remaining tufts of hair. It was not drinkable in the slightest, and he wouldn’t dare use it on his body, which was cut up more often than not, but cleaning out his fluffy hair seemed appropriate. His grooming and narcissism left a bad taste in my mouth.

“Quit hoggin’ the cola, Organic,” I growled, snapping the tail-end of the length of wet bandages wrapped around my knuckles against his open palms.

“It’s _boss_ t’you, wretch,” he replied with just as much animosity. “Y’wanna get your lights knocked out?”

“ _Fuck_ you. Ain’t no one here willin’ t’do that for you, and you ain’t got the balls,” I seethed. I didn’t have time for Organic’s shit today, or at any other point in the near future.

He stuck a thick finger in my face, and my instinct to lash out and bite him was getting stronger the longer it lingered there, inches from my mouth.

“Naw, fuck _you_! I could kick y’outta here and back t’the shithole y’came from right now!”

My exasperation was released in the form in a broken laugh. The feverish Boys weren’t the only ones who were delusional.

“You? Kick _me_ out? Who’s gonna take over once one of your Citadel whores gives ya a bug strong enough t’send turn your gearstick inside-out? Shut your mouth and your legs, Organic. Nothin’ important’s comin’ out of either.”

I saw his face burn under his beard, and his usually steady fists quivered, but he did not move. That smeg knew better- after giving a good whacking about the head for some sloppy stitches a fistful of days ago, Ace had given him an earful on my behalf. Ace might have been a little rough around the edges, but he at least had the liberty of a free mind and mouth. He could say what he pleased, and no one questioned his decisions much further than a few stray grumbles. Not even Organic.

“Fine,” he said as he rose to his knees, glaring at me under his heavy brows. “Y’wanna be fighty? Go fight with Two-Limb.”

 _Two-Limb_. The only one conscious enough in his unconsciousness to still deliver blows and scream enough to silence the entire ward. The only one who could pull out his stiches with the sheer power in his muscles. The only one worse here than Organic.

“ _Eat cock, Organic!_ ” I roared, tossing the bandages into the murky water and earning a howl from the other men as his retreating figure stalked out of the room. My chest swelled with pride, but also oncoming exhaustion. The bandages could wait. Two-Limb’s hunger could not.

I slopped a few spoonfuls of mashed and watered potato into a waiting cup; while I was sure that the sleepier of the patients might have preferred the taste of lizard, it was the only thing I could force down their throats without having to convince them to chew their meals. Two-Limb, in my mind, didn’t need the softness of boiled potato. He had given me enough bites to prove that the only thing wrong with his jaw was skin deep.

Two-Limb’s mates called him Slit. It was almost funny, too ironic for the War Boys’ simple minds to understand. Then again, the name could have been a joke in itself. Two-Limb reacted to everything, even to Ace, with a flying fist and a growl. He didn’t trust anyone, not even Ace. Those who hadn’t gotten their grey bits too rattled up after the Road War had long abandoned the hope of having Two-Limb react in any other way than pissy. I had, too.

I kneeled at Two-Limb’s side, and regretted to see that Ace was at the other side of tiny room, distractedly chatting with some of his mates. Folks were never around when I needed them.

“I got your feed,” I called to him, though, as always, the smeg turned his face away and made a noise of utter defiance. My aching knees willed me to take a seat by his head. I didn’t doubt that he could fling his arm backwards and strike me, but at least the relative distance from his good hand would give me some time to move when he did.

“Hey! War fodder! Quit your squirmin’!” When he still didn’t move, I grabbed him by the forehead with my free hand. Mother, even his _neck_ was bulging with strength, the rusty fucker!

Two-Limb tested the strength of my grip with a violent jerk, but I was unrelenting.

“Why is it _always_ a fight with you?!” I shouted. I expected a warlike wail in response, but I got something much quieter and just as terrifying instead.

He opened his eyes. Wide. Stared right at me and dared me to stay where I was.

I did.

So, Two-Limb, like magic, cocked his chin, lost the grip of my fingers, and sunk his teeth into my hand.

For the briefest of moments, I had believed the thickness of my gloves might have protected me from the razors that were his incisors, but after having been soaked long enough in aqua-cola, the fabric was thinning out to point of barely acting as a barrier for anything. The breaking of the skin forced a scream from my mouth, and as he clamped his jaw, my consciousness blinked and my throat took over, as it had always done.

“ _Mediocre, rusted fuckhead!_ ”

The heel of my hand flew towards his nose, but I he saw me coming. Instead of releasing my hand, he threw his shoulder sideways, dragging me across his chest with a surprisingly amount of force. Blood was pouring from my glove and down my arm, dripping off at my elbow and dripping downwards, onto Two-Limb’s chest. If he didn’t let go soon, he would hit bone, and I didn’t want to find out what would happened when he got there.

I remembered Ace’s rule- thumb and index.

I squeezed my eyes shut and, with as much force as I could possibly muster, jammed my fingers through his healing cheek and _pulled_.

The staples in his skin popped rhythmically as I tore through the thin layer of flesh, and before long, his blood was mixing with mine. We were smothered in it. It was the most colour I had seen in months. I kept pulling, but the thick, scarred tissue nearest to his mouth kept me from moving forward. He was spitting blood and hollering with enough force to shake the entire room. My wounded hand was pressing down hard against his throat, and his strong one was wrapped around my wrist, cutting the circulation with his impressive grip.

“I’m no one’s bitch, you _cunt_!” Two-Limb bellowed beneath my choking hand. Despite the pain I knew it was causing him, Two-Limb cocked his good leg up and was pressing his knee into my stomach, trying to get me to wriggle off. I would not obey. I had spent too long cleaning up blood. I wanted to see some.

I threw as much weight as I could backwards, as he had done, and I felt the skin of his face pull with me as I threw myself about, half-yanking his entire face off. Didn’t need to be strong, to do damage. Didn’t need to be a Boy to wrestle. Didn’t need Maude, or Pa. I could do it alone.

Before I could tear through the final inch of skin connecting his lip to his cheek, someone roughly grabbed me by the back of my shirt and lifted me off of Two-Limb. In the heat of the moment, I had forgotten that the pair of us weren’t alone.

“Leave ‘im with some face, girly! Joe-almighty, I thought y’ _didn’t_ wan’im dead! Sit and _cool off_ , y’fuckin’ animal,” Ace barked, dropping me a few feet away from Two-Limb and forcing me into a corner with his boot. I was not wanted any longer. I had hurt one of their own. I was done for.

Trembling with pain and adrenaline, I couldn’t find it in me to cry. No aqua cola again. I couldn’t cry, not when I had to mop all this shit up. War Boys didn’t have to worry about those sort of things. Those at the top could fight and bleed without consequences. In my corner, watched and feared, I remembered the Wife.

“…think’m tough enough for it, after all, don’t you worry” I said to no one, gathering my knees into my chest.

I would sleep well tonight.


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush gets some body-mods and threatens to actually do her job.

Two-Limb, I discovered, was a lot nastier when he began speaking.

My feelings about Two-Limb were the same feelings I had regarding sand mites- he was everywhere where he shouldn’t be, and even when you thought you hand found shelter from him, you found his bite-marks littered across your body by the time night fell. If he had met me at another time in my life, perhaps out there in the Wasteland where I could manage some respect because of Maude’s good name, I might have been able to keep him from buzzing in my ears and swarming about me whenever I grew too close to his turf.

By the time I had gotten my palm temporarily stitched up by Organic and the infection he had left in the wake of his attack had seeped from my hand, Two-Limb was sitting up despondently against the back wall of his cot and spitting at me every time I strayed too carelessly by his bedside. He refused to accept anything directly from me: if he wanted his share of rations, one of his mates, few as there were, would have to get a second portion and toss it to him. Two-Limb might have once ground his teeth and smacked his lips as he ate, goanna that he was, but the wound I had inflicted on his face (which he refused to have stitched back up) made him take careful, precise little nibbles. It was funny, to watch him be so dainty. Even I, with my small stomach, could finish quicker than he.

Organic decided I could no longer be trusted to work with the patients, which didn’t much bother me. I still had work mopping up after the Boys, which was a completely different challenge in itself, considering that they had about as much hygiene as bald-headed vultures, littering their scraps and shit this way and that in such a way as to force me to clean every inch of the place on a daily basis. It didn’t help that none of them would _leave_.

I could understand why Ace wanted to stay, to a degree, especially after I had wandered about. Having their Boys, who were badly enough perceived by the common folk as it was, tearing the new Blood Shed worker limb from limb would be too much for their reputation to handle. They could be turned into the sand and told to fend for themselves. They didn’t even dare go outside their little room, though I doubted it was out of fear of judgement.

As far as they were concerned, the Organic and I were the only entertainment they had in the beginning. When Two-Limb startled to life at my hands, the dynamic of the place completely changed. We were watched constantly, as if expected to destroy one-another at the drop of a boot. It was infuriating.

I counted the days that had passed with a needle I had filched from Organic’s stash. Every day, I pricked myself in the forearm, going deep enough to make a little scar. In the dark, I often traced the lines of dots. If I was counting right, I had missed 238 sunrises since I had first arrived.

Ace thought my new dots were pretty shine. He would sit by me and touch the painful skin, beaming. Sooner than later, he had come to start pricking my arm for me, one new cut before we both went to bed each night. It became our routine.

Sitting next to his cot, Ace rolled up my sleeve methodically, being careful not to disrupt the healing scars closer to my elbow. It was quiet; even Two-Limb had managed to awkwardly recline against the wall and get comfortable. He didn’t sleep much; he had to concentrate on applying pressure to his oozing cheek with a spare rag he had snatched from the waistband of my skirts.

The sight of him glaring at me made my hand ache, despite the cut having longed scarred over with some of Organic’s hair-thread stitches (which explained the odd patchiness on his scalp).

“…’E won’t let m’stitch up his face,” I said, wincing a little when Ace’s steady hand pressed the needle into my skin.

“Those scars are ‘is livelihood. Spent hundreds of days tearin’ his face up an’ lettin’ it heal t’get it the way it was,” he said, moving quickly to stick the needle between his teeth and plug the tiny wound with his thumb.

“Psh, his scars were rusted. Yours are different,” I said, the smile he formed around the needle making me warm. He was so easy to please, that charming old bastard.

“Now you’ve got’em, too,” he said, holding up my arm for me to see. “Looks like tire skin. Real good work, you’ve done.”

“No one t’see ‘em, though,” I sighed, gazing at the door across the way, which only ever opened to let food in and waste like Organic out. “So rusted, all o’ this.”

Ace sighed and plucked the needle from the place it had sat, dangling at the corner of his drooping mouth. I had noticed the growing swell of his mouth, but I said nothing. No use reminding folks about their deaths, not even kami-crazy War Boys.

“…thi’s what happens, girly,” he said, opening his palms to the ceiling and gesturing with a few half-hearted jerks of his hands. “Yeah, this’s what happens, when y’fall and end up under the tires.”

“Y’end up less than roadkill,” I said dryly, leaning backwards until my head hit Ace’s shoulder.

I thought he might push me away, but he let me stay there. His short beard was scrubbing the crown of my head, and though I wished I could shave it for him, the only one allowed to carry knives was Organic. He had even taken my cord-cutting knife away, after finding it under my sleep-mat. I let him take it, no fight. It was just an ordinary knife, up here, after all.

I tilted my head up at him, and I spotted a single tear carving its way through the dried white paint on his cheeks, the only paint that was left on him after all this time. I panicked a little, and sat straight up, but Ace didn’t stubbornly wipe it away like I might have expected from some of his younger Boys; he let it flow, down, down, down, until it disappeared under his facial hair.

“…but you’re still writhin’, ain’t you, Ace?” I asked, my throat shockingly tight. My scarred hand, the one that still hurt so much, grabbed him hard around the shoulder.

I couldn’t control myself. I leaned into his lean shoulders and wrapped my arms around him. He was warm and strong, familiar, despite the reek that was coming off of him. I coiled my arms under his pits and squeezed hard.

“You ain’t dead yet,” I assured him.

I felt his hands turn to rest along the length of my bony spine, and after a moment, gently pull me away of him. He looked stern, and the blood rushed from my face- I knew when I had overstepped my boundaries.

“No huggin’ the Ace, _smeg_ ,” he snapped, though his tone reminded me more of the way a parent would discipline a rowdy pup than anything else.

I scoffed and got to my feet. “Get some sleep, Old-Balls. You’re gettin’ loopy.”

“No _orderin’_ the Ace ‘round, neither!”

I left him at his bunk in the dark. In the low light of torches, I could see the outline of him and his bald, shiny head ease himself onto his back, as well as the figures of many others. War Boys, I had noticed, often piled together to sleep, perhaps to ward off the cold, perhaps to escape the discomfort of loneliness. I spotted a large group of around eight of them, at the far end of the room, laying askew one-another, heads on stomachs and legs entangled in legs; nearer to me, there was a pair of Boys, snuggling tight into one-another, one of their hands on the other’s ass and holding it in a comically tender squeeze. Even after Ace had settled, one of his buddies scooted over and laid beside him before going right back to bed. In the dark, they were endearing, and _human_ , these boys.

After so many days with them, I was still neglected. There was no cuddling with them, or sharing meals, or even having simple talks with any of them. Ace was my only link into their world, and even then, I’m sure the only reason he spoke to me was to assure the others that I wasn’t some exotic form of wild prey they could chop up and swallow. Even then, some of the Boys still tried their hardest to prove the Ace wrong and swallow me whole regardless.

I could hear Two-Limb’s huffing in the dark. He still was unable to do much else but sit up and hold his face. He couldn’t even eat right.

In the narrow hallway between the Boys’ bunks, I shuffled carefully in Two-Limb’s direction. Even from a distance, I could see how swollen the left side of his face was, pumped with puss and aqua cola from the injury I had given him. His eye on that shut was near-completely engulfed with the puffy skin of his face, and now, he could only use his irritated right eye to send me glares.

As I walked towards him, he followed me, his half-good pink eye rolling with me and stopping when I stood in front of him. We didn’t have much distance between us, perhaps only five feet, but it was enough to keep him from lunging over and knocking me down. I hadn’t been this close to him since he had bitten me.

“You dead yet, Two-Limb?” I asked, and he growled and wriggled in his seat, like I pup trying desperately to walk when told to stay where they were.

“You should’a let me go,” he snarled, and I cocked my head at him. “Would’a seen the Gates by now! Now I’m stuck starin’ at the burnt-up asshole you’ve got for a face ev’ry _cripin’_ day.”

“You Boys an’ your Gates,” I sniffed, remembering Pit’s blabberings about the chrome place that _was_ Valhalla. “They wouldn’t let no one like yourself in, not when you’ve got piss leaking from your gearstick and your face the way it is.”

“That’s _your_ fault, you bag of rusted bolts!” he barked, and I saw him raise his free stump of an arm at me accusingly. I imagine, if he still had his hand, he might have been pointing at me.

“ _My_ fault?! Fuck you, war fodder! _You bit me_! All I did was try and feed you!”

Two-Limb deflated a little, but drove himself right back up to high speed within seconds.

“You would be fuckin’ _dead_ , you know that, wretch?” he seethed, his eyes blooming with fresh, toxic life. “I could’a crushed your fangin’ spine, with a few more seconds. I _hate_ you.”  

“Well, _shit_ , ‘ere I was thinkin’ I was gonna get in your pants between now and sunrise! Suck yourself off, Two-Limb, you’ve already been doin’ it for days.”

“It’s _Slit_ , you mediocre piece of scrap!”

 _Slit_. It was _true_ , his name wasn’t _some_ joke- if it had been, I would have been disappointed. I liked to think I was cleverer than the War Boys, and with this little shiny piece of truth, it seemed for once that I was _right_.

My lips quirked. I couldn’t help myself. It was _too good_. This was all just _perfect_.

I snorted and covered my mouth with my hand, if only to keep myself quiet for the sake of the other sleeping Boys. At this point, Two-Limbed-Slit could rip every hank of hair from my head with nothing but his fist, and I would _still_ be able to find something to giggle about.

 _Shlack_.           

A wet, heavy mass smacked me hard in the face, just below my mouth and right above my neck. I couldn’t tell what it was in the dark, but Two-Limbed-Slit’s exposed, raw face, dripping blood and puss and everything rotten under the sun onto my freshly-cleaned floors made me heave with disgust.

“ _Mother-fucker_!” I roared, ignoring the loud groans of groggy War Boys as they tossed and turned around me.

“Should’a cut my lancing arm while you had the chance, _wretch_ ,” he snarled, watching me irritably wipe my face with my sleeves to try to remove all the sick his face-rag had left behind.

“I’m goin’ t’sew you up somethin’ _ungodly_ ,” I spat, kicking the wet mass back at him with my bare foot. “You ain’t gettin’ nothin’ but needle from me, you hear?!”

I saw Two-Limbed-Slit gather the soaked towel from the ground, ball it up, and gather it back against his face, despite it having it been exchanged between us like shared lizard on a stick. I felt vomit come up again, but I swallowed hard. That smeg didn’t deserve to see my tube-juices, let alone to see at _all_.

His broad smile made me thunder, and to my horror, he removed the rag to stick his long tongue through the hole in the side of his face. A taunt. _Come and try me, wretch_.

I tapped my wrist at him, and despite the oddity of the Before-Time symbol, he snorted and tossed his head.

_Just give me enough time, you slimy bastard, and I’ll try you, alright._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> Also, ya'll can thank MonsterBrush for encouraging me to post this VERY mediocre drawing I did of our favourite midwife.


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush weighs her options with a tiny glass bottle.

Whenever I did something foolish during my youth, Pa would often recount the events of the day that I had almost died at the hands of a creature the size of a creature no bigger than my foot. Ever since I had been born, Pa had brought me out for longer and longer periods of time during the harsh daytime. When my skin had still been soft all over, I stayed within the shady confines of the tent; once I had begun crawling, Pa allowed me a few moments a day outside around dusk. It was safest, he claimed, for I wouldn’t burn, and it was cool enough to leave me content enough when wearing nothing but the skins of my birth.

I hadn’t wandered far, on my hands and knees, and Pa wasn’t worried about leaving me with the company of others besides himself and Maude. Though I was still plump and juicy, devouring me would have left them with Pa on their backs, and Pa was _not_ a man to be trifled with, when he was in one of his moods. By the way he told it, I was gone for less time than it took for the sun’s colours to banish themselves from the sky at sunset, and they would have left me by my lonesome if I hadn’t begun wailing and cawing like a bitter crow.

Pa had found me on my bare back in the sand, my angry fists beating the air, all pink and pale, with two pock-marks on my upper lip and chubby thumb. Beside me, a wriggling hairy-toed land-shrimp was struggling to right itself just as much as I was, its pale stinger twitching in the cool breeze. In my hunger, I had snatched at a scorpion and it had given me a pair of kisses.

From then on, when I got into a scrape, Maude would wrap me tight against her in the sand, lick away the salty aqua cola from my cheeks and praise me, because _at least you haven’t tried your luck at matin’ with land-shrimps again_. I had never thought one could be less foolish than I, but I was younger, then. Foolishness was as universal as the breath and dust in our lungs, and I was quick to learn that some breathed much harder than others.

I was, by all definition, the heaviest of heavy breathers.

From the moment I rose from my caught from my first altercation with Two-Limbed-Slit, I was furiously determined to fix his fucking ugly mug if it would kill me. My opportunities to strike, like that faithful land-shrimp, were slim, and stuffed between the Organic’s fat digits, I knew I would only have small timeframes to work with if I wanted Two-Limbed-Slit’s face to be restored to its former state of semi-normalcy. When my days had previously been filled with a suffocating mixture of dread and boredom, I found new life in my little challenges. I was becoming the thief of my childhood all over again.

The needle was already available to me, and though it was already used and bloodied by my own fluids with my nightly arm carvings, I figured Two-Limbed-Slit’s face couldn’t get more infected if he tried. The worst that could possibly happen while I was stitching him up was kill him, but that didn’t seem overly dramatic. I had become an expert at hauling bodies about in the last few hundred days.

As for the thread, sneaking up on a slumbering Organic and stealing his greasy locks was too risky. He already disliked me more than words, proven by the way he sneered at me every time we caught eyes, and the bastard stared at his rusted face in anything sporting even the grimiest of reflections. He would notice eventually, and being removed from my position here would surely mean a trip back down the Lift, something I wouldn’t dare risk.

I supposed shaving-day would have to come around eventually.

Organic bitched and moaned about the entire affair for long spans of time, that morning, barely taking time to blink between his rantings. Though he was the closest thing to a head nurse-doctor-man our ward hard, he didn’t find any particular value in spending his time around the Boys more than was precisely required. At this point, the Boys tolerated my presence through ignorance, thinking of me as no more than a shadow, something to distract them in times of great pain or loneliness, but I was still nothing more than a rusted wretch with too much time on my hands. Organic remained a target.

Ace’s pleasant demeanor around me and my scuffle with Two-Limbed-Slit had given me enough leeway to become less of a victim and more of a bystander. Of course, I still argued with anyone who dared cross me, but my temper was quickly forgotten. It was only when I drew blood that I was respected, if only until the Boys’ noontime nap rolled around. It was enough to keep me from bruising too much, at least.

A sharp elbow in my side made me grunt. How was it that I always spoke too soon for my own good?

“I’m gettin’ white-haired, wretch,” one of my many scruffy patients groaned, gesturing to Organic with his littlest finger, the last digit he had left on his right hand. A rumpled bolder plopped on the horizon line, Organic looked like the physical personification of a fist-fucking in the trunk of a moving car. His head, plopped back against the wall, reminded me of the time in the Citadel Blood Shed, all cola-less and sleepy.

Another elbow. My growl. “Y’want t’talk about white hair? Go bitch to th’Ace, and give me a forkin’ moment,” I snapped, standing swiftly and glancing at Two-Limbed-Slit.

Still swollen, his face, and I could tell the rags he had nicked from me weren’t doing much to hold in his glossy, yellow-red blood much longer. Only a few more days until he croaked, if he was lucky.

“Organic! Are we movin’, or are we _movin_ ’?” I demanded, wishing I had Maude’s steel-toed boots as I approached his languid form- they made such a damn shiny sound, when they hit stiff ground.

Despite having called his name, Organic stared straight ahead of him, grinning and huffing and looking mad out of his mind. For a jubilating instant, I thought he was dying, but when he heaved in an awkward breath and a groan, I knew I wasn’t so lucky.

The source of his state, I quickly discovered after firmly deciding he _wasn’t_ on the verge of croaking, came from a tiny medicinal bottle he had clasped loosely in his hand. Dark in colour, tinted glass, with a tightly-screwed cap. My mind raced and crashed and raced again, and a glorious smile, one I was sure I hadn’t displayed since my childhood, filled me with enlightening glee.

Organic had just kissed a scorpion.

Snatching the bottle out of his hands, I eagerly held it up to the light and danced away when he attempted to come after me. I felt lightheaded, and stars were beginning to dust my vision, but I was strangely careless.

“Organic,” I breathed, clutching the little bottle and watching his weak muscles struggle to carry him across the room towards me.

“Oh, Organic, if this’s what I knew my shit was goin’ to, I would have _fucked you for it_.” Organic wasn’t just leaving this shithole for sex. He wasn’t stealing shit to pay for beds. He had something even better waiting for him on the other side in exchange for his scavenged prizes.

This rusted mother of a crazed nut had gotten his hands on _fume_.

Instinctually, I wanted to find myself the quietest corner the Blood Shed could offer me, and huff the stuff until I forgot my own name. I had seen the effects this kind of stuff had on every wretch in the Wasteland. If one was lucky enough to trade things around in Gastown and get their hands on a bottle of fume, they were considered to be the only thing of value between the sand and the Citadel.

I had had my first experimental hit of the stuff when I had first successfully delivered a pup without Maude in the tent, a _trust-catch_ , as she called it. Its mother didn’t have any aqua cola to give us, I recalled, but when Maude was offered a similarly medicinal bottle for my good work and eagerly took a sniff of it, I knew it didn’t really matter. At 5000 days, _I had become the wind_.

Organic’s state would begin to falter in a handful of minutes. _My window of opportunity_ , as Maude would say, was soon going to be closed.

Up unto that point, I had never believed I would be able to find it in myself to be running towards Two-Limbed-Slit, especially with a stash I had nicked off of the most powerful man in the entire Third Tower. If I had been smarter, I might have run out the door, found a desperate enough wretch, and gotten enough rations to last me the time it would take for me to find more work.

A part of me believed the risk was worth it. Even if the Wife found me, even if I got sent back down the Lift, I would have made a bargain to make Pa proud.

As I reached Two-Limbed-Slit’s bedside, I hesitated.

_Mother, why did I hesitate?_

He stared at me, blood dripping from his face, and sneered. I wanted to run. It would be so easy to run. But seeing all the red made me think of Maude.

My first failed birth had been about 500 days after Maude’s trust-catch. I hadn’t had enough sleep or aqua cola, that evening, and when the pup slipped into my hands, I didn’t notice the cord around its neck, wrapped tight to the point of purpling the pup’s little face. I cut the pup loose from its mother, coddled it in a spare rag, and placed it at its mother side as I helped her with the afterbirth. I had been so exhausted that I hadn’t even noticed that it wasn’t squealing like most pups usually did. It was only when I called Maude in to help me dispose of the bloodied sheets I had placed under the mother’s hips that she had realized my mistake.

I was beaten to the point of screams, when we returned to our tent, beaten with near-everything in damned sight. I didn’t remember much besides the pain, save one thing that Maude had snarled at me just before grating her fingernails down my back.

_If your mistake leads t’ someone croakin’, then you’re the one who deserves to die._

I collapsed at Two-Limbed-Slit’s side and grabbed the needle I had filched from the folded section of my hair wrap, sticking it in my mouth as I had seen Ace do when giving me my scars. Thread, I still didn’t have any damn thread. I was hoping to find some loose hair after shaving some of the Boys, but I didn’t have enough time to ask for volunteers and find a knife. I could hear Organic, perhaps a few dozen feet behind me, threatening me with slurs and the angry clomping of his shoes.

_You work fast, Rush?_

Squeezing my eyes shut and digging my hands up and under my hair wrap, I bit down hard on my lip and _pulled._

If Two-Limbed-Slit wasn’t holding his soaked towel across his mouth like he was, I was sure he would have slurred at me. I looked kami-crazy, I was sure of it.

From the multiple days of neglect, and stress, and malnutrition, it didn’t take much force for a clump of my hair to come out with a decent enough pull. My head throbbed as Organic screamed behind me.

_Mmm-hmm, fastest, most effective pup-catcher this side of the Wasteland._

I blindly threaded the needle I had stuffed in my mouth; that was when Two-Limbed-Slit started squirming, scooting backwards on his tail bone to get away from me. I could nearly feel Organic’s breath on my back. War Boys around me revved up in anticipation for a fight. I wasn’t quick enough, I wasn’t quick enough, _I wasn’t_ \--

My head flew to the side when I spotted baldness in my peripheral. My head wrap fluttered to the ground and let my black hair loose into my eyes, but I still bore witness.

Ace was crouched a handful of feet away from me, wearing an expression of utter solemnity. I couldn’t read anything on his face, save the map of scars cutting into his skin.

He was waiting for my cue.

I nodded.

I had turned back to my work by the time I had heard the Organic’s heavy body hit the ground and the entire ward roar with excitement. I was probably missing the fight of a fucking lifetime, and I mourned my bad planning. Stupid Rush, stupid reckless _smeg_.

The bottle in my hand trembled as I crawled towards Two-Limbed-Slit. He did not fear me, but his suspicions regarding the bottle were clear. I wish I had time to explain. All I could do was smile as I grabbed the back of his head with my free hand.

“You’re going t’love me after this, war fodder,” I said around the needle between my lips. I turned the cap with my gloved thumb after a few clumsy tries, flicked it away, and held the bottle to Two-Limbed-Slit’s busted face.

His breaths were shallow, but enough to get him to slow his breathing and slump onto his elbows, dropping the towel that had been married to his face for days. It was a wonder he hadn’t already died from the blood loss. Lucky, _lucky_ bastard.

As the world around me crumbled and the sounds of broken bones timed my stitches, I closed up Two-Limbed-Slit’s face with my own long, dark hair. Puss and aqua cola and blood and saliva oozed from him as I worked, tainting my already soiled clothes, but I was too concentrated to care.

At least if Maude died, she could die knowing I wasn’t a failure like Pa. That is, if she could remember my name.


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush discovers that there are no real keys.

The Boys in the ward had not learned my name in the many days I had been caring for them, but such realities did nothing to perturb me. My anonymity was a blessing in a place as dangerous and as sparse of people as the Wasteland. My normalcy, my lack of tumours and symmetrical face, had originally been considered an issue, but that was quickly corrected with the edge of a blade; the same went for my tendency towards thievery, though the blade had become a cord-cutting knife. Things were always capable of change, and one was always able to get lost in a crowd, if they were careful enough.

After the scuffle with Organic, and the news of my successful stitching of the biggest ward rat’s infected cheek, the acknowledgement of my presence had begun to drift around the place like an airborne disease. _Sister filched from the Organic Mechanic_ , they breathed to one another as I handed out rations. _Sister and the Ace got a two-man crew_ , they hummed, daring to edge close to me as I scrubbed at bandages with our diminishing supply of aqua cola. _Sister got the fume. Sister got Slit tuned up. Sister tried to touch the sun, but keeps getting burned._

Organic was bound and placed in the corner of the room furthest from the door, and his injuries only allowed him to open his eyes several hours after the fight, though that could have also been the effects of the fume running out of his system. Ace had pummelled him something monstrous- there wasn’t an inch of his face that was still the colour of skin. _The Organic Mechanic got given a real good paint job_ , they snickered, crawling up to him and prodding at his purple face and broken nose, cackling at the sound of his stifled shouts, which had been muffled behind the gag stuffed in his mouth. I barely needed to look at him to see the extent of Ace’s work- near-every bone in his face had been fractured or broken, and blood was choking him. Unlike Two-Limbed-Slit, we gave him no food or rags with which to clot his wounds. It would be a matter of days before he died.

Ace had assigned someone to stand by his body and prod it every so often, if only to check for signs of life. Even with this new post (Ace had jokingly called began calling the position _Vulture_ ), I still wearily gazed at his bruised and bloodied body, reeking with the piss he had let loose during the fight still lingering in his trousers. There was a sense of pride in seeing the man that had abused his power over me for hundreds of days laying near-lifeless in a corner, but I knew that if I indulged in that pleasure for too long, I would descend into madness.

I sat by Two-Limbed-Slit while the others regrouped, speaking in low tones and glancing at Organic every couple of breaths, as if to reassure themselves that he wouldn’t somehow crawl towards the door and fetch help by the time they finished their respective conversations. Some spoke of eating him, but his meat would only last a handful of days and there was no way of cooking it without alerting the proper Blood Shed behind the door. Leaving and finding shelter elsewhere would be impossible: there were too many limbless or immobile Boys to get very far without help. We had two choices: return the man to the proper Blood Shed and hope he didn’t live, or slice his throat and pray the Wives wouldn’t discover who had killed him.

I glanced down at the body of the man that used to be the _big gun_. Under the influence of fume, Two-Limbed Slit was morose and confused, leaking aqua cola and crying out in his sleep for a man I did not know. _Nux_.

I felt a kinship to him, when he was in such a state. There were many times I wished I could cry out for Maude, but I did not have the luxury of drugs to excuse me from my sanity as he did. I had shattered the bottle of fume the moment I had finished delivering Two-Limbed-Slit from his pain, and though the glass had cut through my gloves and injured my previously delicate hand, I was too focused on keeping my patient’s thick fingers from tugging out his fresh stitches.

When he was too lost in his memories and exhausted to fight my hand, Two-Limbed-Slit responded well to the delicacy of my touch. The smeg still pulled face around his stitches and grunted, but I assumed those reactions were positive when he refused to bite me, even when I touched his mouth. He looked a wreck- his dark hair was beginning to hang past his ears, and his facial hair was growing out comically around his scars. It made him look ridiculous, especially when the dark oil marks near the roots of his hair and the pockets of his eyes still clung to his skin.

I laughed at the state of those around me, the men washed out by time, if only to keep my mind occupied and off the fact that I, too, was soon meant for death. The Wife had not wanted me here in the first place; my failure would mean complete expulsion from the life my Pa had once so desired. I had little time left. The pup’s head, airless, had already begun to turn purple. I had delivered it into this world, so I had no choice but to loosen the cord.

I reached over Two-Limbed-Slit and gently touched Ace’s thigh with my fingertips, my eyes glued to my hair, woven into the War Boy’s flesh. We had mixed blood, and now he bore a part of me in him- he and I were what Maude would call _blood brothers_. I hated the thought of it.

“I’m going t’talk t’Organic,” I said as Ace turned to me.

Ace chuckled and brushed me off with a cocked brow. “No need. ‘E’ll be gone, if we wait a little longer.”

“And then what?” I demanded. “He’ll be gone, and _what_? W’all starve after we eat ‘im? We wait ‘til the Wife comes ‘round and finds us diggin’ through his bones? The Wives, they sent y’here t’get a tune-up, but they’ll wreck you all over again if they find out what y’did.”

Ace hardened behind his beard.

“Naw,” he grunted. “ _You’ll_ be th’one wrecked, girly.”

I blustered and paused. He was right. There was no use fighting what I knew was true- no matter how close we had grown, his life and mine were not the same. Though the Boys had just called me Sister and began to register my presence in their weakened minds, _I was not them_.

My fists tightened in the stained fabric of my skirts.

 “ _…I’m going t’talk t’Organic_.”

Heavy on my thigh, my pouch of red ochre bounced against me as I walked. I had not painted myself in over a hundred sunrises. Though I was tempted to lick my thumb and bathe myself in the stuff, my hands did long for the thickness of war paint. Instead, I reached up and tightened the wrap around my head.

Organic’s eyes, despite the puffy skin surrounding them, rose to me, and though it would have been far easier for me to kneel and speak to him, I refused to bend a knee. I wanted him to look upon me, in stained and ragged clothes, looking worse than I had ever been, missing two of my molars and beginning to lose my hair.

“I don’t know why I didn’t leave this place days ago,” I said, the steadiness in my voice both a shock and a comfort. “It don’t matter, though. I’m leavin’ now, an’ you’re comin’ with.”

Organic made a mock-inquisitive voice in the base of his throat, and coughed up blood because of it. It dripped from his lip, and yet, he still wore a shit-eating grin.

My words were of no use in this strange, dark place. I knew so. My urge to curse and name-call was stronger than I was, but I restrained myself. My bare foot rose with my anger, and blindly, I pressed the dirty sole into his shoulder and leaned in.

Organic howled and choked and howled again. I pressed harder, until I was sure he could see the rage behind my gaze.

“This’s what’s goin’t happen, Mechanic,” I muttered, furrowing my brows. “I’m goin’t drag y’out o’here, and we’re goin’t find the Wife, and y’ain’t goin’t say a _word_. And damn you, Organic, if y’even _think_ ‘bout croakin’, I will fuckin’ _tear your cock off_ an’ stick it in your rusted mouth before you could take your last breath.”

Organic screamed at me, and flecks of his blood ended up on the inside of my thighs. I ignored the sensation, burned it from my mind, reached out and grabbed his broken nose. My injured hand squeezed his nostrils shut, while the other pointed into his paling face as he wailed.

“ _Did you hear?!_ ” I roared, and when he helplessly nodded around my grasp, I continued to stare into the bloody texture of his face. Mother almighty, was his skin _rough_.

I slowly removed my weight from him, my mind heavy with fog. I had no idea what I was doing. I had encouraged patient mutiny, and was about to lie to the woman who had given me a chance at life.

In moments such as those, dragging the Organic’s heavy body towards the door with my complete strength, I strangely thought of Jericho. The day I had refused to give him my aqua cola was the day he had folded himself into me and claimed me for his own, in a way indescribable to one who had not lived the terror of it all themselves. His filth had lingered in me for months before I dispelled it from myself, from both body and mind. He had taken my blessings and made them his routine.

These Boys were manic. They snapped and writhed and kicked and spat, and yet, despite it all, I adored them. They lived when I could not, and clung to every speck of pure white paint on their bodies that they possibly could. It was magnificent. _It was chrome_.

Now, I was completing their journey where their injured bodies could no longer take them. I was delivering their fragile minds to Valhalla by my own soft and scarred hands.

I paused to open the door with my free hand, and glanced over my shoulder at the Boys in the room. Grotesque with burns and amputations, dying from lack of proper food and water, relying on nothing but a manufactured image of gates they would never come to see, I pitied them. Poor, poor Boys.

“I’m goin’t come back,” I assured them, and the crowd bobbed as the men that formed it nodded. It was odd, to see such a unified reaction come out of them that hadn’t been barked out as an order.

“Naw.”

Two-Limbed-Slit sat up in his cot, testing his swollen jaw and the strength of his stitches. His oily eyes, free of the cling of fume, did not have the ability to soften.

I prompted him with a jerk of my chin. He laid back down and folded his hands across his stomach.

“…naw, wretch, you _won’t_.”

I nearly lost my grip on Organic’s tunic as my strength faltered.  My muscles screamed with having to lug the weight of a man around, a weight I hadn’t realized I had been carrying until someone questioned me. Organic had felt light as a pup, but a moment ago, but in retrospect, I had been aching from the start.

I glanced back towards the door, the one I had often seen Organic walk through and disappear behind for hours on end, and reached out with my free hand to touch its handle. There were no keys to the door, no locks, nothing keeping me in. I could have left days ago, but somehow, it was only when Organic was broken before my eyes that I realized how easy it could have been to walk away. Just because others hadn’t had the ability to leave before me did not mean I couldn’t.

I curled my fingers around the handle and pulled. The scent of crisp, fresh air filled me and stung at the tire skin texture of my arms. The Organic’s stench was so strong, once I took a good, clean breath of air, but it was easy to ignore once my head began clearing. As I pulled his weight out into the hallway, I looked in upon the dank place I had called home for so long. How could so many have thrived in such a place?

My gaze landed on Two-Limbed-Slit, and, despite myself, I grinned. He did not see my pride- rather, he did not _wish_ to see- but I smiled and smiled nonetheless.

“ _Witness_  me,” I said, and as I began pulling Organic’s weight down the long hall, I thought I tasted lizard and milk. 


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush fucks up. Bad.

I had never known my real mother. There had been days when, in the dead of night, I could feel Pa rub my back at my side and murmur about someone I had never seen, calling me by a name that was not my own. He had always praised me for my resemblance to my mother, regardless of how much of an issue it caused when I was out and about before my scarring, and I took pride in knowing that I could bring him some meager form of honor in my full lips and dark eyes.

Maude had known my mother, in life, if only for a short amount of time before she passed. _Built like a mountain, your mother,_ she often reminisced when she would notice me struggle to carry my heavy bag of supplies from one tent to the next. If not for my father, who I clung to during my first months of life like a tumour, I am sure no one would have believed my motherly relations. It was only once I grew into my body, passed my 4000 days, that I began receiving toothless smile and loving pats on the cheek by those aged enough to see the resemblance between me and the woman who had carried me through her work days, heavy in her stomach but unrelenting in her drive to survive. _Mag-Dala’s daughter, through and through_ , they began to say when they heard of my pup-catching abilities despite my youth.

My mother was an icon, even in death; Maude was respectable and not to be trifled with; my father had been named Mercedes Man and had gazed into the burn of the heavens. I was nothing. Even my softness, so rare and valued in a calloused world, had been taken from me.

My reappearance in the proper Blood Shed seemed to have startled everyone present- I was barely dressed, my clothing having long been cut short in order to provide more fabric for bandages, and I was so absurdly dirty and matted that I must have seemed like no more than walking nest of blood and hair. The sight of me might have alarmed the nurses enough to ensure a concerned question, but the trail of blood Organic had left behind got them to call the Wife.

In the time it took for them to sit me down and wrap my scarred arm (I tried to explain the reason I carried a pin in the fabric of my hair wrap, but they only offered me concerned gazes and confiscated the damn thing before I could get a word in), the Wife had arrived, taking swift, purposeful steps in my direction.

She really was a thing of beauty. My mouth went moist at the sight of her, though I hadn’t had a drink of aqua cola in a long while, and my chest ached as she took a seat beside me, grasping my hands. I had forgotten my gloves back with the Boys, but I was glad to feel her skin on mine, even if she had left me to the vultures and allowed them to pick the meat off my bones for hundreds of days. I forgave her. It was easy to forgive the life-changing.

“Oh, Mother, _look_ at you,” she mourned, gazing down at my ribs and the pallor of my skin. Her hands squeezed tight enough to cause pain, but I allowed her that subconscious comfort. Her eyes were steely despite the quaver in her voice; she looked up and over my shoulder, down the darkened hall.

Hearing her call upon the Mother made my skin pucker. I hadn’t heard anyone mention Her name in what felt like one hundred lifetimes.

The Mother was sacred, and for a grand portion of my youth, I prayed to Her every sunrise and sunset. Maude had long ago given me a verbal list of reasons to pay respect whenever I had the chance. If I refused, I was _lazy and selfish and too high-and-mighty, worse than the rot on Joe’s back_. I was to pray for swift births and for my lack of tumours, for drops of aqua cola or a nightmareless rest. I was to pray for everything. _Everything_. With the Boys, under their stares, in the belly of dozens of beasts, I could find nothing to give thanks for, and nothing to give thanks to. The Mother had died in that place, and from Her ashes, a scarred version of myself had been born.

“Don’ look at _me_ ,” I said, baring my yellow teeth in a smile-snarl I had learned to perfect from watching Ace bark at his Boys. “Ain’t nothin’ much t’see.”

The Wife kept looking, hard and long, and focused her attentions on my scars. She released one of my hands to cup my face where the scar pecked my cheekbone. Concern did not do much for the Wife’s pretty face- it washed her out completely, made her look like a dead pup straight out the soft bits.

“Are you in pain?” she asked, and I shrugged. I felt fine. I _always_ felt fine, unless I was dying. Dying was distinct in the best and worst of ways. At least, if you were on your way out, there was no _beating around the bush_ , as Maude would say. You knew.

“Sure, but I don’t mind. Ain’t nothin’ I haven’t felt before,” I said, and opened my mouth wide for her to look past my tongue. My molars, two neighbours on the right side of my maw, were shattered completely, and I had to exclusively chew on my left side now, if I decided I wanted to gnaw on anything at all. I knew, before I even needed to see her face fall, that the only one with enough experience to pull them from my gums was Organic, who was bleeding so bad in the cot across from mine that they had to have a nurse doing nothing but mopping up the blood.

Maude would be able to do it, if I went back down the Lift. She knew a shit-tone of teeth-yankers willing to work for nothing but the tooth itself. When times got tough enough, they could make a profit selling them to gummy old folk who needed replacements. Stealing from the toothful and giving to the toothless- it was fucking _poetry_ , whatever that was.

“Rush,” she said, ignoring the pleased smile I wore when she spoke my name. “Rush, _why_ didn’t you listen to me? I could have found you other work.”

I squirmed a little in my seat and chewed on the thinning skin of my thumb, a habit I had picked up after removing my gloves and keeping them off. If Maude were here, she’d slap me hard and bandage me up and tear my scalp off if she ever saw me picking at it again. The Wife didn’t do anything, just sat and watched, and a part of me hated her for it.

“…why were they there? That room?” I asked, watching Organic’s flailing form but a hairsbreadth from mine.

The Wife, in all her beauty, wrinkled her face subtly, the corner of her mouth twitching just so in reaction to my question, but she remained silently, pretending to distract herself by readjusting the bandage on my arm.

_Fucking bitch_ , she _knew_.

I pulled the thin pole of my arm from her grasp, and she lurched with me, unwillingly to let me loose. She seemed surprised by my strength, her brows raising at me as she coiled her fingers back into her palms in a swift tuck.

“ _Why_?” I asked again. “Why’d you stick ‘em with Organic? He barely fed ‘em! He barely fed _me_!”

“Rush, _calm down_. Organic was the only one willing to take them. What will be done with him will be decided after he is able enough to speak and think clearly,” she said, her sharp shoulder blades jutting up harshly against the back of her tunic, the wings of a stubborn crow, as she sat up straighter.  

If Maude did speak of my mother, there were often three things that she brought up and conversation: her strength, which had passed over me like the early morning chill, her beauty, which I had inherited in minute fractions, and her irreversible temper. I was no Mag-Dala, but the fire in my blood could not be extinguished, no matter the bucketfuls of sand life decided to toss my way.

“Oh, _fuck you_ , Wife!” I roared, storming to my feet and digging my clawed nails into the bandages around my arm, which were crisp and thick with freshness. I ripped the fabric from my skin with the harshest of tugs, freeing myself of the Wife’s confines, and the warm air of the Blood Shed almost felt cool against the burning scars.

When wild dingoes got foamy about the mouth and began snarling and spitting with madness, they would always kill the creature and dispose of the body, uncooked and uneaten. I had once mourned their deaths and my hungry belly, but Pa had offered me wisdom beyond my years. I could still feel his breath against my ear, if I concentrated hard enough.

_If you can the eye-whites of anythin’ live enough to snap its jaws, you stand back or kill it on sight._

I fucking hoped the Wife could see mine.

“’Only one willing to take them?’ _What am I_ , then?” I snarled, tossing the bandages at my bare feet. “Y’didn’t come check on ‘em, y’didn’t make sure they were still croakin’, _y’didn’t do shit_! Ain’t _no one_ who knows those Boys like me! They’re dangerous, but they ain’t much more than that! Y’stuck ‘em there so that y’wouldn’t have t’stare an’ remember _Joe_! Y’locked up the nastiest Boys y’could find and prayed they would _die off before anyone noticed what y’did to ‘em_!”

I stepped off the cot where the nurses had sat me down and glowered down at the Wife.

She was trembling, all shoulders and elbows, and I could see the gleam of aqua cola running down her cheeks. Even in anger and in sadness was she stunning, a weeping fire. There were very few who had the luxury of looking beautiful in times of distress.

“You know _nothing_ ,” she cried, and though it pained me to hear the evident conviction in her voice, conviction that I knew could only stem from truth, my pride deafened me. I turned my cheek to her.

“Y’left us there t’ _rot_ ,” I said, clutching my empty stomach. “I don’t need t’know more than that.”

I walked out of the carnage the way I came, all those days before, and thought of Ace. I missed his reassurance, and his warm touch, despite his disposition towards sternness.  I thought of Maude, who would never let me back despite her love for me. _I brought you into this world,_ she’d say, _but I won’t bring you back in again if you turn your back on it._ I thought of Pa, who would surely do worse than ignore me, if he was still alive.

I thought of my mother.

She had been shot in the stomach after a barter gone wrong, and Maude had to slice me free from her. She had survived long enough to see me grow some, but the infection killed her; the story made my broken teeth ache.

I thought, for a moment, that the Wife might say something to stop me. I was sure she would order me down the Lift, or send someone after me as I strode out the room, but there was nothing there but crying and Organic’s screams. It was only when I glanced back from the hall and spotted her sniffling into her palms that I realized that we must have not been so different in age. If Pa hadn’t cut me up so young, made me a little ugly, I might have been snatched up to become a Wife, too.

I forgave her sadness. I always would. However, I could never accept her ignorance. Didn’t she know? Leave meat out too long, and it’s bound to attract flies.

I did not allow myself to stray too far from the entrance of the Blood Shed. Despite how much I wanted to leave, and despite how much I wanted to wring Organic’s skinny neck to smother his squealing, I had no idea where I was going. Moving forward into the darkness would instantly have me lost and alone; going back was being forced to face a snarling pack of waking terrors that I was not sure I would be able to fight off.

Pa was a scavenger, and one night, after days of foodlessness, he traded his favourite necklace for a bundle of six little horned lizards. The necklace was a silvery chain that was strung through a trinket he had salvaged from a wreck- it was three-pronged, and looked something like a star. From the day he had brought it back, people started respecting him. For a time, people called him ‘Mercedes Man’, though I’d never quite known why.

I had seen the wreck, but I had no title to bring back from it, and I had no people to shout my praises.

I thought about Mary.

I cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> Another version of Rush! I am on an ongoing quest to pinpoint exactly what she looks like. Apologies for the bad quality, the piece of paper I drew her on is tiiiiny. This version of her is a bit softer than the last. Tell me what you think below!


	14. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush is practical and looks down towards the sand.

When Maude began allowing me to perform more pup-catches and started to rely on my success more and more as a food source, she enjoyed joking about how much sleep she was getting in her old age, and how her old bones had never rested as well as they had in the cool sand. _Ain’t nobody thinkin’ ‘bout hungriness, past sunset_ , she would say, and I relished the silence that accompanied the extinguishing of fires and final pisses. _You find sleep, you’ve found temporary death_. The expression had scared me, once, but on the nights where I could not bear to shut my eyes, temporary death was a goal I strived for at every moment.

Laying on my back, my palms cradling the sandy floors, I listened intently to the slow rumblings of the morning as the sun surely rose outside, a gleam I had still not seen. I had become adapted to the low light- would the sun burn me until I was blind and milky-eyed? The thought of losing my sight did not bother me as much as I thought it would have on any other day. My livelihood, like Two-Limbed-Slit’s staples, had been ripped from me by own accord. _Stupid Rush_ , I thought as I rolled onto my side. _Stupid, mediocre Rush._

I would have to face the Wife eventually. I knew that refusing to see her would assure me nothing but hundreds of nights in a cell, if they even had such imprisonment in this horrid place, or much worse if she had truly lost all her sympathy. I would have to tell her the truth behind the abuse Organic had suffered at my command; the thought of losing Ace to the wrath of a girl barely out of her own childhood had me anxiously picking at the dry skin of my lips with my long nails. If roadkill was still squirming, it was scooped up and eaten, and I couldn’t imagine the amount of ways they would be willing to cook a traitor like Ace.

Folks inside the Blood Shack rumbled to life, speaking in low tones, heavy tongues wagging in the cool air. I had not heard the Wife stop crying, the evening prior, nor had I seen her svelte shadow glide out of the room. I figured I must have dozed off despite my pain, grasped at temporary death before having it slip between my fingers. The thought of being so achingly close to the unattainable lit the guzzoline in my belly and made me roll irritably to my side. I could not allow those Boys to die. I had dragged the lot of them back from the edge. The Wife would regret ever letting me take one look at them, if she wanted them dead.

I would rise up, in this place, and become the sun these men had lacked. Folks would look upon _me_ and know the day had begun.

I got to my knees with a huff and glanced at my surroundings: other than the handful of displaced voices murmuring in the other room, there was no sign that the nurses had returned to begin their morning duties. Not even the torches that usually lined the halls were lit yet. I did not have much time, but if I ever wanted to prove that I deserved to see Ace and his Boys again, this would be my final chance.

I had had enough of being teased with the uncertainty of a future I had planned out for myself. Success would not fall in my lap out of convenience. I would not be a hero. I had to reach out and claw for any purchase I could find during my fall; whether it would hold my weight or not was not for me to know.

The nurses would be here soon with rations, and I knew my Boys needed to eat.

Past the rows of cots and resting patients, past even the Organic, who had been patched up enough to manage more sleep than even I, I crawled on my hands and knees towards the place where I had learned to bite back when I was bitten and howl in the face of those who dared bark; the only place I had ever known where those inside could be selectively silent and survive on the sheer mass of their muscle alone; the only place I had ever known where those inside would rather cut than heal.

No one stopped my four-legged shuffle towards the heavy door. Even if they had seen me, crawling towards what they must have assumed to be my demise, there was no one around them to alert them. I felt at least a dozen eyes on my back, but no one reached out to grab me and keep me from my path, though I couldn’t fathom why. I didn’t weigh more than a couple of heavy jugs of aqua cola.

Once I reached the end of the hallway, I turned to face the folks who were following me without a step. Their eyes, wide in the dark to let the light in, blinked slowly at me, as if to assure they weren’t dreaming.

A finger flew up towards my lips when I saw one of their jaws slack. _Quiet, please, I’ve got work to do_. When they nodded at me sightlessly, I _ran_ , all limbs and no muscle.

The door that I had left open unto Organic’s ward was still askew, never closed after I had gone. What lurked behind it was more familiar than the taste of the breeze at this point in my existence, but there was still an inkling of fear lurking behind the texture of the wood and the growing stench in the acidic air.

I used both hands to pull the door back, which was mistake. The moment my fingers curled around the thickness of the door, I jumped back when a foreign fist slammed inches from my fingers. I yelped with shock and managed to toe the door open with my heel before I was able to be assaulted again.

Two-Limbed-Slit leaned just beyond the threshold of the doorway, balancing on his one proper leg and pressing his shoulders back against the wall to keep himself upright.

“Y’want t’ send me you t’the fuckin’ grave, smeg?!” I hissed, though a part of me was delighted to see that he had not ripped my hair-stitches from his cheek, and the swelling hand gone down enough to allow him to see through his previously obstructed eye.

To my surprise, Two-Limbed Slit responded with nothing but a dismissive growl. Perhaps that was because Ace was leaning so close, just behind his shoulder, but I’d like to think it was because I had really put him in a corner. I was important. He couldn’t hit me. He _needed_ me.

A din of multiple voices began screeching into the silence Two-Limbed-Slit left behind- some men groaned at the sight of me, deeming me useless, while others readily grabbed at each-other and garbled about returning to their garages or out on the road. Ace didn’t dare silence them, this time. He simply stepped out from behind Two-Limbed-Slit and grasped me firmly about the shoulder.

“Y’back for good, girly?” Ace asked morosely, raising his other hand to prod at one of the bags dangling under my eyes. No sleep almost always meant bad news, and he knew it.

I brushed him off with a step to one side. “No time for coddlin’,” I groused, my eyes falling over the crowd.

They looked absolutely disgusting, those Boys, unshaven and some still stuck in the ragged clothing they had gotten themselves injured in on the Fury Road. Despite the Wife hearing her own truths spilling from my lips, she had not yet sent help for them. Their current tendencies towards unease and thoughtlessness also indicated that they had not eaten; after my outburst, I was not sure they would even get their meals today.

My head pounded with the thought of having to provide for them all without Organic. _Organic was the only willing to take them_ , she had said, which meant he was probably the only one who knew how to get his hands on such large quantities of food without going through the Wife, too. If I could move them all out of this room, for a start, I might be able to watch over them better. The place was too small for the lot of them, especially as the group gradually regained their ability to move around. It would be worse than ever before, soon- fights would break out and they would become gradually unhappier. I would not survive their discomfort and unhappiness.

Fresh light in small quantities poured in from the crack outside the door, making my head crane back to the watch the shadows of fire dance across the floor at my leisure. Over the roar I had created, I could hear indistinct greetings and a few stray ‘good-morning’s being passed around outside. The Wife was here. She must have returned for her sunrise rounds.

I had one shot. One bullet in one gun and one target and one hand bound behind my back.

I wiped the sweat building on my brow and squeezed my eyes shut until I could see stars in the darkness behind my eyes. I had missed the sight of them.

“All of you,” I yowled, my voice rising with every breath as I pointed blindly into the crowd. “All of you, _kill your damn engines_!”

Silence. Silence like I was still in the womb.

I opened my eyes, and my spotted vision blurred the faces of the crew I had gazed upon for nearly ten moon cycles, all patiently waiting for orders I didn’t know how to give. I felt Ace’s hand reach over and take me by the shoulder again, despite my demand not to be touched.

 _Sister and the Ace got a two-man crew_.

I breathed in sharply through my nostrils, and recoiled my accusing finger from the crowd to my lips, where I swiftly tap the swell of my lower lip.

“If y’want t’ wake up an’ shit another day, then you’ll keep quiet, yeah?” I hissed. My Boys were smart- they didn’t even need to nod to confirm what I had said. Instead of lingering any longer than I needed to, I turned on my heel and turned to leave. _My window was closing_ , and I was desperately trying not to get my fingers caught.

Two-Limbed-Slit gave me a look as I passed, all scar tissue and pulled lips, but instead of spitting at him, I waved my hand between him and the crowd and then gestured to my eyes. _Watch them close, rustbucket, while I’m gone._ Like he was still on fume, his facial muscles relaxed and, eyes to the floor, began to distractedly pluck at the stitches in his cheek. _Cunt_ , he mouthed, but I ignored him. Two-Limbed-Slit was getting easier to manage. At least, if all of this refused to work, I could say I tamed the nastiest lizard in the entire War Boy ward.

I travelled back out the door with surprising ease, and back down the long hallway, which distinctly reminded me of a woman’s soft bits, the long birth canal that I would slid my fingers into in order to help pull out pups. The analogy made me smile: the bitch that was the Citadel was about to have a litter of the sharpest, meanest pups that she had ever known, and there were no soft hands needed for the comfort of this delivery.

Like a pretty insect pinned into a frame, a Before-Time hobby Pa had once compared to organic-scavenging, the Wife was exactly where I had placed her in my mind’s eye, leaning over a patient and worrying over some blood-soiled sheets. Under her eyes were a pair of bags identical to mine. It had never occurred to me that the woman who had helped Furiosa kiss the sun couldn’t find rest.

The patient she was fawning over noticed me before the others, and I recognized him as the man I had shushed as I returned to my Boys. The Wife found the source of his flabbergasted expression instantly. I had just crawled out of a spider’s nest and had the gall to throw myself right back in.   

The Wife and I exchanged air, crisp and new, and I heard the catch of her breath in the near-silent room.

“I want t’show y’something,” I said, and while her lipped twitched as I had seen it done before as the stress washed over her, she began to approach me like one would approach an animal for slaughter.

“…I _can’t_ ,” she said, her voice like the gentle warbling of a delicate bird I had never heard. I could tell that, if I pushed, she would begin to cry again.

I sighed at her, but nodded and reached my hand out to her, a gesture of peace and trade, Pa’s two favourite things. She did not hesitate in taking it, which surprised me. _Brave girl_.

“…when I was still good at deliverin’ pups,” I said, moving to gently tuck her hand into the crook of my arm. “We had these pups that were born all crooked-like, foot-first. Called ‘em stargazers.”

I could feel her resisting as I began pulling her away from the cold comfort of the Blood Shed, and back into the tube-like hall I had scurried from like a newborn. Her boots were heavy on the ground, like mine had once been after Jericho, but she soon relented when she felt the new scar on my palm with a graze of her fingertips.

I smiled at her.

“Y’know what we used t’say, ‘bout stargazers?” I asked, spotting the door already from our spot at the other end of the hall.

The Wife shrugged at me, and I saw the aqua cola in her eyes. _I’m sorry._

I smiled. _S’okay._

“We used t’say, ‘Gotta pull ‘em out of the womb eventually. Can’t spend all day starin’ at satellites.’”

She smiled, and her tears fell, and suddenly, she felt a little lighter on my arm.

 _Come on, Wife,_ the stretch of my scars ordered. _Let’s quit countin’ stars._


	15. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush sticks her foot in someone's face and raves about shit.

The Wife could not handle the stench.

In hindsight, I should not have rushed her down the hall as I had done. Perhaps it was because I could not manage another day, walking back from the light and into the dark like a night-adoring creature too frightened to be crisped by the sun. My circumstances were intense and too raw for the Wife to understand. I could not go back. _I could not go back after this_ , or I knew I would rot there until my body gave in and was picked apart by the hungry Boys who would manage to outlive me.  

A quiet part of me, smothered by the layers of dirt and blood caked to my skin and the shards of broken teeth in my gums, knew that the ward couldn’t truly be the end-all. Technically, if I tried hard enough, rationed well, stayed away from the sicker patients as best I could, I would be able to survive there. It was surely better than some places I had frequented in my early childhood. However, the thought of lingering made my body seize with discomfort. _Survival alone could not be my end all._ That was not why I had boarded the Lift to this torturous maze of a city. If it was, I would be fine, still sitting there with those Boys in the dark for ten thousand days more; I would still be with Maude, sandy and hungry and working only to distract ourselves.

There was a Before Time expression Pa used to hum: _I’d spend forty years a slave for one moment of freedom._ It had never occurred to me how long I had been chained, in the Wasteland. My survival had been my empty joy. How much more emptiness could I take before I swallowed myself up hole?

The Wife’s weight slumped and dragged behind me as we approached the door, and from my peripheral, I could spot her anxiously shaking her head, her smooth hand rising to cover her mouth and nose with the pressure of her palm. I could not blame her. No one’s piss smelled as good as your own. The hand that I had placed into the crook of my arm fell, too, and the wrinkling of the skin on her pale forehead made me pause.

The Wife had turned her shuddering gaze to the ground, unblinkingly staring at a lone pebble lingering at the toe of her boot. I saw her shoulders jump, and I thoughtlessly took her by the bicep. Though she was taller than I, her hunched back force me to drop to my knees before her if I wanted to join eyes.

She was clammy, despite herself, the bags under her eyes looking puffy and raw where her skin had swollen. She continued to aggressively shake her head, and though I thought she might scream for the nurses out of sheer panic, she remained eerily mute. She could not find the words to express what she needed. She reminded me of Pit, that way.

I broke.

My hands hovered to take her by her spotted cheeks, but I did not dare brush her skin. _Step One: Make sure the mother wants to be touched. She may not be ready to push just yet._

“It’s alright,” I said, forgetting my previous fury. “Y’see? Nothing’s wrong. Ain’t no one here but you and me. I’m goin’ t’touch you, alright? Nice and gentle-like.”

Even her head shook as I took it solidly in my hands. I could still feel the slight pull of her muscles, her body revolting against my own, as I rose to gingerly tap foreheads with her. When I was that close, I could hear meek whimperings escaping her throat. What had happened? She had been find. _We_ had been fine. Tears poured from her face, and though I instinctively wished to inform her that she was wasting aqua cola, I could not bear to have her break down further than she already was. I was _so close_.

“ _I don’t want to see_ ,” she wheezed, dropping her hands in order to wrap her arms around me. Though I cringed at the sheer tightness of her arms against my ribs and the sharpness of her chin transferring to my shoulder, I returned her embrace and half-greedily coiled my fingers in her curly hair. Perhaps, if mine was as clean as hers, it would feel equally as soft; perhaps my tumbleweed could be piled up high like hers, too, no hair wrap needed.

Her cheek pressed against my neck, and I removed my fingers to pat her hair instead.

“Yes,” I said, “I know.”

She was leaning her weight on me, now, I was not sure how much longer I would be able to hold her up. I began bending my knees and, to my relief, she followed suit, until we were both sat on the floor, the Wife semi-thrown across my lap in what looked to be a desperate cry for affection she had not received in months. She had Sisters, I knew, but the closeness of her body and her posture, all-giving, was not something purely amical. This touch of hers reminded me of something else; of Maude and Pa, perhaps, curled into one-another on the rare frigid evenings of my first hundred years, whispering and touching; of Pit and his first glance at me, bold and rosy.

“They… they’re like _him_.”

I had heard the whisperings and the rumours circulating regarding the supposed ‘him’ she spoke of long before I ever considered heading up to the Citadel. The tales that returned from the Fury Road had all been stained with violence and carnage, save one, one that all the young husbandless mothers told me while I helped them deliver their pups. _The Wife hurt Joe, not by killing him, but by loving the war fodder he didn’t mind losing_. A War Boy, they had claimed, had traitored the Immortan after the Wife had opened herself to him. He had died for her, sent to the Mother before her very eyes. _The Wife and her Boy_ , they breathed in awe. _Isn’t that just a dream?_

My jaw tightened. “No,” I said, thinking of Two-Limbed-Slit and his long hair and bushy beard and fucked face. There was no romance, in him, no Before Time love-ballads. “They aren’t. Not anymore.”

The Wife and I sat there until she soothed herself enough to remove herself from me and sit at my side instead of on my thighs, her slim hand shamefully folded across her eyes. It was hard to see the expression she was making past all her glorious hair, but I figured it would be an ugly cross between embarrassment and utter exhaustion.

 _Step Two: Make sure the mother’s alright. Offer her something to eat or drink, if you have any. She needs to keep her energy up_. I had nothing to give the Wife of my own, not even a pretty scrap of metal, and I doubted that she wanted my paints. Her fire-hair was impressive enough. She wasn’t in any need of another colour to make her stand out, to make her strong.

She leaned back against a wall, and I followed. Mother almighty, I was _exhausted_. It reminded me of my scuffle with Flint and his mate, true War Boys, all painted up and strong. Flint, the softest of the pair, the one who dared cry before an outsider, had been looking for a mate named Zipper, and after beating me near-death, had filled me with such sleepiness that I had preferred death to living without rest.

I had never met a Zipper, while I was working with the Boys, and none of them had spoken of him. Zipper had probably been in the grave long before I arrived, either due to his injuries or Organic’s neglect, long enough for his Brothers to quit mentioning his name. Poor bastard.

“…y’have t’see it,” I said, turning my head to look at the Wife, who had her arms wrapped around her knees as she blearily stared at a dying torch spitting embers up against the wall. “Smellin’ it’s only one part of the experience.”

She didn’t respond, but I knew she had heard me. It was impossible to have ignored me, in such a strained silence. I also knew, in my infinite wisdom, that she wasn’t going to stand up for shit. She was driving without checking her mirrors, that girl, too scared of finding out if she was being chased or not to glance in her rear-view.

Huffing softly, I scooted forward on my backside until I was up from against the wall and sitting across from her again, giving her nowhere else to look but right at me. I could see my distorted reflection in her clear eyes, but the sight of myself wasn’t a comfort- I turned my gaze to the tip of her nose instead, close enough for her not to notice I had glanced away but making me a shit-tone more comfortable.

Reaching out to her, I pulled on the edge of her thick cape, and though her glare was near-humorous (so un-ferocious, for a grown woman), it did not waver from my scarred face.

“If y’think I’m goin’ t’ let those Boys _die_ because y’can’t buck up and face the site of ‘em, y’have another thing comin’,” I said, keeping my tone cool before the Wife. She was upset enough, but I could only coddle her for so long.

“Shut up,” she snapped, irritably shoving at the hand that was holding her cloak with surprising aggression. “You don’t know _shit_.”

“Oh-ho, _big words_ , Wife!” I sneered, tugging up my skirts and sticking my bare foot out for her to see, only inches from her face. It had been stained a deep brown, and if the smell didn’t give her an idea of what had coloured my skin, then the infected soles of my feet might. “ _I_ don’t know shit?! I’ve been _livin’_ in shit!”

The Wife screeched and shoved that away, too, gritting her pearly teeth. Seeing her riled only made her more stunning, and I fucking _hated_ it.

“You could have _gone!_ ” she shouted, lips curling with disdain. “I didn’t _want_ you to work with them! I told you it wasn’t right for you!”

“But y’still _left me there_!” I roared. “Y’couldn’t even send someone t’get me! Y’just hoped I would _croak like the rest of them_! Fuckin’ _bitch_ , y’stuck every War Boy who wasn’t pretty-lookin’ enough t’get up skirts in the Road War in there, closed your eyes, and _chose to forget_!”

“ _I did not forget_!”

The soft flesh of her hands grew sharp upon the collision of her knuckles with my cheek- a _backhanded_ slap, that crazy smeg. I would have been impressed, if I didn’t taste blood in my mouth. My gums were so sore and sensitive from my tooth loss that any amount of sudden pressure could get me bleeding out like a freshly caught dune snake.

I spat out the crimson stuff on the ground beside us, and the Wife instantly recoiled, hands returning to their previously shaky state as she folded herself against the wall, and our collective panting filled the small space between us. _Step Three: Count the time between the mother’s contractions. If she needs to squeeze your hand, then let her._

“Y’have a mean slap,” I rasped, touching my swollen cheek and wincing when my exposed nerves wailed with discomfort. “That’s useful, ‘round those Boys. They need a firm touch.”

The Wife still hesitated around me, uncomfortable looking down at the room she had avoided for hundreds of days. The girl had tossed those men into a bonfire, praying they’d turn to ash, but hadn’t come back to check if they were still burning or not.

I looked at the door with her, and spotted some shuffling from behind it; those Boys had heard our fighting and were looking out, either for entertainment or to assure I wasn’t dead. Either way, I felt a little flattered.

I knew she would never see that room. I just damn _knew_. Even if I dragged her there by the toes and threw her inside, she would keep her eyes shut until she couldn’t bare it any longer. She wanted to stay blind, but I would have to lift the mask off of her eyes eventually, no matter how hard she thrashed and screamed.

“… _Ace_?” I called, and the movement behind the door ceased instantly, as did the Wife’s breathing.

The door creaked under the weight of a careful hand, and I saw the end of a nose and chin poke out the doorway, before gliding back into the dark room. The flood of light, no matter how minor, probably hurt Ace’s old eyes, poor thing. The Wife got up behind me, panicky, but before she could move too far, I grabbed her wrist and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

_Step Four: When the pup’s coming, pull it out as quickly as you can, like ripping off a wet bandage from a wound. No use stalling what’s bound to happen anyways._

Just as I was about to call for him again, Ace emerged from the dark, squinting hard through his facial bandages as he shuffled towards us. I wasn’t sure if he recognized the Wife, but she sure recognized him; I could feel her muscles flexing hard as she attempted to wriggle from my grasp, but I was unrelenting.

Ace stood between us as confidently as a half-blind man could, arms folded across his chest and glassy eyes staring daggers into the Wife.

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” The Wife blurted out, and Ace’s wrinkled face coiled with confusion as he looked her up and down.

“ _Are_ you?” he asked mildly, gesturing to me on the ground with two fingers, almost as if he were holding a mock gun. I had never seen Ace posture, but if I had to guess how he would do it, it would be like this. Sniffling softly, as if he were smelling her fear on the air, Ace cocked his head back towards the door and turned on his heel.

He was fucking kami-crazy, that old shit. He was _out_. He could have run, made a break for it. I shook my head as I got up, still holding the Wife, though she was much more responsive to Ace’s orders and walked willingly alongside me now.

The Boys were leaning eagerly out the door by the time we reached the spot, reaching out for me and Ace to give them a hand, muttering beneath their breath and gazing down the hall in disbelief. The sight of them in proper light made me choke on my own gob.

Had they always been so thin? Their ribs pitifully clung to their skin as they eased their way out on their bellies, not waiting for the permission of the Wife. _Forty years a slave for one moment of freedom,_ I supposed _._ At the back of the ground, Two-Limbed-Slit was shoving at the crowd and scooting forward on his backside towards the light. I would have offered to help, but his hand looked rough and I had already tasted enough blood for one day.

Piled one on top of the other like the first day I had seen them, the limbless and the ill clambered eagerly into the hall, coughing the humid moisture of the ward from their lungs and breathing in the crisp, dry air they were all too familiar with. As they shuffle by, some clasped their hands, fingers out, like I had seen Pit do when he had first seen the Wife. I smiled when they made their little symbol at me. I liked it.

“’Bout time you let us out,” Two-Limbed-Slit grumbled, and I couldn’t help but chuckle helplessly. _Son of a smeg-faced whore_.

I had not released my hold on the Wife yet, but her surprising stillness made me worried. She was just _staring_ at them all, saying nothing, doing nothing. She watched as they found respective spots, leaning back against the hall’s walls and chatting eagerly amongst themselves. She watched Two-Limbed-Slit punch one of his Brothers in the arm for getting into his lounging space. She watched Ace join them, all wrinkles and scars, and plop down in the dirt with what was either the tiniest of smiles or the largest of cringes. With such a stench in the air, it was hard to tell.

The Wife gently removed my fingers from her wrist and mindlessly shut the door, never looking in. After seeing my Boys, I don’t even think she needed to. With great purpose and a strange maturity I had only seen her wear but once before, she nodded deeply at me and adjusted her cloak. She was not pleased, not at all. She hated every second of her time there.

And yet, she still stayed.

“Tomorrow,” she said, moving to plug her nose with the edge of her cape, “we’ll shave them all.”

I bowed my head and beamed, Ace-style.

Perhaps the Wife could handle the stench, after all.


	16. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush treats her Boys to a taste of her new blade.

The first true weapon and tool I had ever received as a child was a tiny switchblade that Pa had traded for next to nothing in Gastown. Gifts were few and far between, in the Wasteland, so upon his return from his bartering trip, I was ecstatic to receive the miniscule knife, if only to congratulate me for having lived as long as I had. The present had come but half-a-hundred days after Jericho’s assault on me, and though I wishfully convinced myself that the weapon had nothing to do with the events of that morning, I was too wise at that age to completely ignore the truth.

Following the gifting of the switchblade, I did not spend a day without something sharp strapped to my hip. Jericho grew weary of me as I flashed my metal more often in public, and decidedly stalked away from me when I sent my most intense of childish glares in his direction. Pa had surely given him a talking-over, and with Maude beginning to pull me out from under the burning scrutiny of the sun to watch over mothers and pups, he turned from me and looked towards other girls for entertainment. He would not risk another verbal beating from the Mercedes Man, especially not when he could risk getting sliced in the process.

The cord-cutting blade became my next prized knife, and I prided myself in the silly names I gave it. _Life-Giver, Mother-Maker, Joy-Bringer_ , all completely inappropriate for something that could easily do much more harm than good, if I willed it to do so. Maude beamed when she saw me wield it, through screaming and bloodshed, and when I had done a satisfactory job she would always spend the remainder of the evening coming through my tangles of hair as a painful reward.

There was no returning back to life before the blade. I did not know how I would manage without my knife, when Organic stripped me of it, and I felt as if I were in constant state of nudity without it. I had to accept it had probably been traded to Gastown bums for fume by Organic’s hand, but I could at least comfort myself in the imaginary thought that my cord-cutting blade might be someone’s first knife.

When the time came to shave my Boys, who were replenished with energy once they had been moved to the Wife’s side of the Blood Shed, I could not believe the nurses were trusting me with a razor so soon after my narrow escape from the clutches of a moist, illness-ridden death. However, after properly staring at them, I noticed their mannerisms around my Boys- quick and precise, but flighty. They did what they had to do to make sure they didn’t succumb completely, but refused to do much else than that. I could not really find it in myself to be mad with them, because despite their fear, they still performed their roles more effectively in one day than the Organic had done in over two-hundred.

The Boys still had to share beds in order to have enough room to fit them all in the Blood Shed, but I did not once hear them complain. They ate until their stomachs overflowed and they spilled sick from their mouths, that day, sick that I was more than happy to scrub off of the floor. Some of them even dared to smile at me and offer me words of encouragement. _Sister done pulled us from the depths! Sister helped us touch the sun!_

They muttered eagerly at me when it came their turn for a shave, and even though I might have originally struggled not to nick them (Ace officially was sporting a new, bleeding cut half the length of my smallest fingers on his chin from my clumsy fingers), they made a point to stay still and praise me when I managed to cut the majority of their hair away. One by one, going down their line of cots, I raked away at their tousled, matted hair, and collected what I could in a bucket provided for me by the Wife, who all the while was sitting quietly in the corner of the room and observing with an expression of decided bitterness.

The Wife seemed to be able to handle the sight of my Boys hairy and ragged, but as they lost their hair and became soft-faced again, she grew more and more irritable and emotional, distracting herself from the scene at hand by checking on her other wretch patients. It didn’t help that my Boys thought absolutely nothing of the Wife, sending looks her way when she glanced in their direction or making a point to spit at her when she came too close. Like my first days in the ward, they wanted to test the make of her, see if she was to be trusted at all or if she would crack under the pressure of being surrounded by them. From what I had seen so far, the Wife would not last more than a week around them. She had given them freedom from the ward, but that did not mean she wanted anything else to do with them, like trapping a fly and letting it loose outside your tent flaps instead of crushing it.

When I reached Two-Limbed-Slit, the Wife had had enough, and escaped to the hall for a moment of peace. Two-Limbed-Slit grunted as I began working at his hair, squatted beside him and watching him apathetically watch the Wife leave the room. Two-Limbed-Slit’s condition had somewhat improved; his face had stopped oozing completely, and though the stump of his leg and his missing hand still gave him the occasional ache, the burns he had sustained on the left half of his body were becoming a solid pink colour, which was a good sign, I think.

Truly, I wish I could help them more. I could not tell if my stitches were tight enough or if my bandages were holding properly. The nurses remained too frightened to intervene, and Organic, cunt that he was, was still too broken to do anything more than whimper. Fuck him, fuck the nurses. Fucking rusted, the lot of them. The Wife was to blame, too. She had let them out, but here I was, the _only one_ doing anything to assure my Boys still stayed alive.

Two-Limbed-Slit yowled when I pulled too hard on a knot in his hair with the edge of my blade, and I didn’t have enough time to react before he gave me a hard shove in the stomach, knocking me on my ass and toppling me into another Boy’s lap. _Mother, was I tired of him._

“ _Fuck_ , wretch, can you be any less mediocre?!” Two-Limbed-Slit snarled, his hand grabbing his aching scalp.

“Screw you, Two-Limb! I don’t have t’shave none o’ you!” I barked, and the Boy I had fallen into helped me up with a push of his hand on my lower back.

“Quit your posturin’, mate, she ain’t got no gearstick to compare to yours,” the Boy at my back snapped, and I thanked him with a look, though I knew he would never receive it.

Slit’s cot-neighbour had been different from the other shaves, being one of the only blondes in the group, all yellow-haired like a newborn. He was pretty-featured, too, nothing like Two-Limbed-Slit’s wrecked face. Besides the pair of scars that sliced his face in four, one down the middle of his face up-and-down and another going left-to-right, he almost looked normal. He had lost his eyes in the war, and I had sewn his lids shut by Organic’s request, to keep infection out, or something of the sort. He had no chance, working as a Boy again.

Two-Limbed-Slit sneered a smile at me and puffed. “That’s why you’ve been so pissy ‘round me, isn’t it? Can’t resist the thought of me fuckin’ you raw with my shiny gearstick, scared of missin’ out.”

I stood slowly and patted the blind Boy on the shoulder as I moved to where I had been, kneeled beside Two-Limbed-Slit and trying desperately not to lose a finger with his constant shifting.

“You’ve _already_ been fuckin’ me raw for _days_ , Two-Limb,” I grumbled, and continued to saw the blade back and forth against his tangle of hair. So neglectful of themselves, these War Boys, too busy focused on others to worry much about what happened to them. “I ain’t been missin’ _shit_.”

“After my bite, you’ve just been lookin’ for another way t’get close. Come a little closer and I’ll bite you somewhere _shine_ , wretch.”

My shoulders locked as he taunted me, and I was glad I was standing behind him. Rusted bag of nuts, he knew _exactly_ how to get under my skin.

The scent of my own sweat reached my nostrils, and suddenly, the grime between my fingers and the oily weight of my hair made every movement feel over-greased. I had been unused to the humidity of the ward, and now that I was back in the relative dryness of the Blood Shed, I couldn’t handle the sleek moisture of my own body. Back with Maude, we could take sand baths, wipe ourselves clean of the muck on us in the comfort of our tent. Around those Boys, cleanings were rare, for both they and I. Organic had the opportunity to get clean, thanks to his frequent visits to the outside. We had none.

I shaved Two-Limbed-Slit as quickly as I could, using all the strength in my hands to keep his head steady, clasping his jaw between my fingers. When he moved or complained, I threatened him by inching my fingertips close to his stitches, which shut him up but did not make him scream as I might have thought. In theory, he was probably in a lifetime of pain. I couldn’t wrap my head around how he was managing to remain so cocky and unflinching despite the anguish I knew he was most probably in. It was like mothers with their pups- they could coo and nuzzle and comfort their newborns while bleeding out, all happy-faced and glowing.

Two-Limbed-Slit furrowed his brows when I paused to stare at him, knife lingering just below the horrific cut on his cheek. _Bastard_. I was a pup, to him. The thought of it made me gag.

“You’re done,” I said, smacking him hard on his good cheek and gathering his hair from the floor. I was eager to get away from him.

“Like what you see?” he said, straining his neck to show me all angles of his jaw.

“As much as I like chewin’ on snake bones,” I said, tucking the blade away into my waistband without even looking at him. He was a monstrosity, whether he had a beard or not, and I did not need to confirm my thoughts.

Two-Limbed-Slit thundered with discontent when I walked away from him; I could tell as much, because I heard his once-blonde Brother begin to bark at him after receiving a punch to the arm for ‘being too soft ‘round the wretch’. Doctoring-business was taking his pup away from him, and someone needed to be punished for it when I could not be.

I set the bucket of hair down by the entrance to the Blood Shed, where the Wife was lingering, watching me intently. Her bitterness from earlier had melted into something softer, perhaps when she saw me scrubbing at my own dirty hands.

“Who is he?” she asked as I slumped to the cool floor, away from the Boys and out of view, where they could not see my exhaustion. Two-Limbed Slit could take everything out of me, if he tried, and he just had.

“Don’t matter,” I said, gently untying my hair wrap; when the pressure was released from my head, a few strands of dark hair fell into my lap. Without hesitation, I put those in the bucket, too. “A smeg with too much energy, is all.”

The Wife placed her hand on the top of my head, but I pulled away before she could put her fingers in my hair. Didn’t want to lose any more of the stuff.

“He pushed you,” she said, dumbfounded. “He pushed you _hard_ and you didn’t do anything.”

“I don’t want t’get bit!” I exclaimed with a roll of my eyes. “He’s a nasty thing, but I can’t risk more oozin’ and bleedin’ round here. The Boys got t’stay happy if I want t’stay breathin’.”

The Wife made a complicated expression, one of relation. I imagined Joe hadn’t been too dissimilar from his angry Sons. I wondered how long it would take me until I, too, began to be unable to look at their bald heads and clean faces. It was only a matter of time.

“They’ll need paint, eventually,” I said, picking at the callouses that were beginning to form on the tips of my fingers. “Paint and fresh clothes.”

“They don’t _need_ paint,” the Wife insisted, but I brushed her off with a wave of my hand. They _would_ need paint, unless I wanted to end up like Organic, punished for my neglect.

“It’ll be good for ‘em,” I decided, brushing a loose strand of hair from my eyes. That, too, fell from my scalp and fluttered to the floor.

Perhaps I would soon be needing a shave, too.


	17. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush runs for the first time in months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, sorry for making all of you wait so long. I am very rust. Finals came at me fast, and I just started a new project with your friendly neighborhood AO3 legend, Weirdness_Unlimited. Hopefully this more dramatic chapter makes up for it.

Before I could spout much of anything beyond ‘Pa’ and ‘Mumma’ from my greedy gullet, I had contracted something nasty Maude called dog-cough. She had told me that, for a handful of nights, I was wheezing and whistling in my lungs and couldn’t catch my breath, barking my innards out and acting like I had caught something cancerous. Most pups got it, but most died from it, too. Ugly, fatal thing, dog-cough was. I had been called to treat many pups for it, but I could never do much.

I was stuck to Maude’s nipple for hours on end, during those few days, if only to soothe my tears and give myself something for me to concentrate my frustrations into. Though she had then been dry of milk, she didn’t mind my suckling. Kept me quiet, she said, but I knew that it was truly because she thought I might croak and wanted an excuse to keep me close.

I survived the dog-cough’s choking grip on me eventually, and Maude often told me that she was shocked I came out of it so well, that I was much too skinny a pup, too malnourished for life. She said that one of the Mother’s eyes were on me, during that time, and prayed in thanks constantly after that point for allowing me to live. To this day, if I could not find something to pray about in my evenings, I thanked the Mother for the breath in my healed lungs. Life was no luxury, but it was better than the unknown that came hand and hand with croaking.

After I had gotten sick, no matter how many ill little ones I was around, the dog-cough’s deathlike breath had never rolled across me again. It was immunity, whatever that meant, that’s what Ma called it. I prided myself in the fact that I couldn’t seem to be killed in my early years, and in my innocence I often found myself wondering if the so-called immortal god, up on the Citadel balcony, had ever gotten dog-cough. I liked to think that it could still snatch him up one day.

Jericho came down on me like a needle of lightning later, when I had shot up like a car on hydraulic lifts and was beginning to get prettier. I had nightmares for hundreds of days afterwards, and Maude often had to keep me from doing drastic things, like slicing at my own skin as well-deserved punishment for making my Pa’s existence so hellish. Maude reminded me of my time with the barking cough when I’d wake up at night screaming and squirming, pulling the sharps I had clenched between my fingers away and kissing my hands.

_It’s just like when you were sick, baby- dog-cough got you once, can’t get you again. Just got to survive the first time, and you’ll be lovely forever_.

Ace quickly noticed my hair loss. It was getting hard to hide, because with nothing for my hair wrap to grip onto any longer, I had to resort to wearing it across my forehead, where my pale skull meat was exposed. It was all coming out on the right side of my head entirely, lovely long black strands I had grown for years fluttering to the ground, a snake’s shed skin dancing in the breeze. Having his worried old eyes on me gave me an excuse to work harder and more efficiently- I was changing bandages and scrubbing floors and dolling out food like a loon, trying to find any excuse for him and his Boys to leave me be, to get them to stop whispering about my condition when they thought I was asleep, to convince the group to quit offering me mouthfuls of their rations like I was some picky pup who didn’t want a feed. Even Two-Limb’s teasing had gradually died, his corner of the ward becoming more and more quiet as the days passed. He kept giving me these looks, with those ugly eyes, like he was trying to decide what to make of my state. It drove me crazy.

When I wasn’t working, I sat on the floor and went through the bucket of hairs I had collected from their shaves, and plucked out the longest ones I could find before discarding the rest of the matted clumps of fur, and wove them around my knuckles to make one large loop of singular hairs before tying the ends of that great loop altogether. I would never run out of thread, now. I kept the growing ring of multicolored hair around my wrist, where no one could take it. Had to keep myself and my things under control, with these Boys.

The Wife often came around to sit with me, when all my Boys were asleep and I was still up by lamplight, working hard to keep my hands busy. She always offered to help me with whatever I was doing, whether it be scrubbing bandages or just praying quietly, but I knew it was all Citadel formality. It was just a polite way of offering me an explanation as towhy she insisted on lingering beside me, stroking my head and trying to draw a smile out of me by offering me extra bites of lizard or desert mouse.

On the night when the final clump of hair on the right side of my skull fell out, around day 290 or so, though I had long run out of space on my arms to scar up, Ace had stayed awake with me while I picked dried, hard skin off the tips of my fingers. My nails were getting long. They’d need to be cut. Didn’t know when I would need to get catching again.

Ace caught my hands just as I was raising my digits to my teeth, and even though I huffed and pulled at his tightened grip, he refused to let go. His old face looked so tired. I wondered how he hadn’t fallen asleep already.

“Gone work-loony, you have,” he said, leaning in close to get a better look at my balding head. “Got t’stop sometime, girly. You’ve been runnin’ your engine too long and its gettin’ hot real fast. Killin’ yourself quick, the way you’re doing things.”

“I ain’t no engine. Not one o’your cars. I don’t get _hot_ ,” I snapped, wriggling my fingers until he loosened his hold.

To my great aggravation, Ace barked out a dismissive laugh and palmed the naked side of my head.

“You’re right! Not hot, but cold!” he insisted, blowing cool air at the bare skin and delighting in the shiver I couldn’t help but accept.

I did not laugh with him. I could not bear to. I jerked my head aside and covered the bald spot he had touched, which effectively made his amusement die with a settling of his wrinkled face.

We sat there, the two of us, the rumble of snores seeming like the nearing thunder of the most passive storm in history as we then knew it. My broken teeth ached in my mouth. I had never gotten them pulled, and my cheeks were swollen because of the lingering fragments that still clung to my gums.

I spat up blood most of the time. It was hard for me to work. It was hard for me to sleep. It was hard for me to live.

“Why did you come here?”

I looked up at Ace as he spoke, and the expression he wore struck me with completely terror: with his eyes looking so grave and his face, so attentive, he could nearly pass as the kin of my father. His metallic tone made me swallow, and I cringed at the taste of something sour in my own mouth.

“…’cause I needed to,” I said, dropping the hand that was clinging to the cold skin of my head.

He shook his head at me. Wrong? I wasn’t wrong! I set my shoulders when he made a low, grumbling noise in his chest.

“Why?” His tone was careful, but I could tell he wouldn’t let me sleep before he got an answer. A tone Maude would often use when she was trying to work something out of me that I didn’t particularly want to tell her. Ace must have been a parent, at one time, because no man of his age without children could learn to speak the way he did.

“It don’t _matter_ ,” I huffed, feeling my heart strain behind my ribs.

“If it don’t matter, then y’have no reason t’be here.”

Looking back on that moment, I wonder if Ace knew what his words would do to me. He must have. He had lived too long to still speak carelessly.

He knew I was lost. He knew I hadn’t a clue why I was breaking my back over a small group of war veterans who probably would have rather died than returned home with injuries so horrific and attitudes so soured under the shadow of tyranny that they were kept locked away from the rest of the world like lepers.

Why had I ever left? What did Maude see in this place? Her lofty idea of a good future for me was based off of rumour. The great legend of the Immortan Joe was dead, and yet, his lies still remained. I was a midwife working like a dog to save the pups of a dead man, and I never even needed to oil my hands. What the _fuck_ was I doing?

Ace took my wrist in his hand. His fingers and palms were so large that they could fully wrap around the circumference of tiny forearm. He squeezed, hard, and that made tears spill from my eyes. My throat grew tight with his grip, and my breathing grew shallow. He must have seen this before. He was too stone-faced for this to be much of a shock to his system.

“Stop wastin’ that cola, girlie!” he barked, shoving his knuckles against my face and scrubbing roughly at the damp skin. “You’re still writhin’, ain’t you?!”

“ _I don’t know!_ ” I bellowed, and breath filled the emptiness in me like blood filled a wound.

The Boys around me must have woken, because the snoring had stopped, and I could feel the fire of their eyes in my skin. Their whispers rose with my angered sobs. My hands, clenched over my eyes in fists, were applying so much pressure to my eyelids that I could see stars swarming in my vision. I had not seen the stars in so many days.

I’m not sure how long I sat there for, with Ace holding me and squeezing until I was sure he had left his fingerprints on me. This wasn’t aggression. I knew so. I had seen what he could do to someone, if in the right mindset. He could have snapped my arm or done much worse if he had been irritated with me.

No, he sat there. We sat there. The Boys watched as my sobs silenced themselves and all was left of my sorrow was the violent jerking of my shoulders and the bob of my spine through my tunic. My urge to pray was strong, but I knew the Mother wouldn’t listen to a word I had to say in such a dark, dank place.

“She need a mechanic?”

Two-Limb’s voice was a screech in the silence, one that made me look up at him. Up in his cot, he looked pissed off for being woken, rubbing his bad eye, as if something besides his cataracts were clouding his vision. He wasn’t even looking at me. He was staring at Ace, like I was some screeching motor and he wouldn’t get his foot off the gas.

_I don’t know, smeg, do you need a wrench down the throat?! I’ll be happy to find one for you!_

No words came out. As I bared my bloodied teeth to speak, the rattling _boom_ sounded from the hall leading outside the Blood Shed and stole the breath from my lungs, and the earth-shaking banging noise continued sounding in a steady, eerie beat. _The heartbeat of the Citadel_. Someone was playing the war drums.

Those who were not asleep around me rose from their deathlike sleeps and instantly got agitated, sitting up on their elbows and blearily looking about, reaching for their waists, where their tool belts used to be. Those who could stand helped themselves to their feet and began baring their teeth, shouting loudly over the deafening noise and trying to make sense of what was going on. Even the blind man, the one with the crossed-face, was feeling around his cot and attempting to grab someone’s hand, a call for attention and clarification.

Ace’s hold on me got impossibly tighter. I squeaked and pried his fingers off of me, but he too had forgotten about my presence. The War Boys seemed as if they were in a trance at the sounds of war, and it was terrifying. Nurses were swarming in from outside in an attempt to calm the crowd, but they hissed and pushed and yelled obscenities over the growing noise. It didn’t take long for the room to be absolutely packed with people, like snakes in a mating ball, writhing and flicking about.

Whips of red embers dancing in the tightening room caught my attention, and my body instantly began shoving past elbows and torsos in order to follow the splattering of colour. I was shoved and knocked down a handful of times, but I was lucky enough to stumble upon the Wife after a few knocks to the temples.

The Wife looked horrible, sleepless and grey, like a corpse, but upon seeing me she rejoiced and caught me tight in her embrace. She screamed something at me, a long sentence as she began leading me away.

I fought her as she dragged me through the crowd, grabbing at my Boys’ arms and trousers, trying to get their attention. Some of them looked and held onto me; others snarled and shoved me away by the forehead. I still reached for them anyways.

I had dragged these Boys from the depths. I couldn’t let them die. I just needed a few more days. A few more days and we’d all be out under starlight again.

The sickening, explosive sounds of gunshots made the room roar, and though I didn’t hear our screams, I knew both the Wife and I had wailed at the sound. I tried to pull away again, but the Wife had now dug her nails into the bruises Ace had left behind and was half-dragging me at this point. My tears were still rolling fast and warm.

In my blurry vision, I saw Two-Limb trying desperately to get up on his good leg with the help of the wall. His mouth was agape, his scars twisting bitterly with the strain as he used every muscle in him to pull himself up from the rocky floor. Our eyes met as I was dragged into the hall.

_Go,_ he said soundlessly, all teeth and blood from where he had popped my hair-stiches, pointing with his stump-hand at the hall. If the Wife wasn’t running with me, I would have run to him, instead. Mother, I didn’t want to die _this_ way. I had survived dog-cough once, why was I being forced to survive _again_?

As the Wife and I dashed down the hall, I managed to regain my hearing enough for me to hear our feet padding on the floors. The drums were still incessant in their rhythmic pounding, but with the Boys’ screaming out of my ears, I could make out what I was hearing again.

“What in the _fuck—_ what’s happening?” I demanded, wiping my eyes with my free hand. My bare feet were getting sliced and pounded on the raw rock floors. I hadn’t run in so long, and these were not the sands of my childhood.

The Wife turned to me and attempted to speak, but another nearby gunshot masked the sounds escaping her.  I only caught one word on her lips.

_Riot._


	18. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble is further from the gunshots than Rush might think.

Pa’s knowledge was not something that was difficult to rival, though I could never fault him for his lack of interest in learning such skills as reading the Before-Time language. He was raised on the work of the body, and not the mind, wrestling for the last piece of meat and hauling valuable scrap on his burnt back. All he had ever known was that which his parents had taught him, and those things had been few: Pa could only ever hold interesting conversation regarding automobiles and war.

I had grown up around the idea of chaos, a concept that was married to the violence of war and had been screwing it gently for centuries. However, when being pulled through the stone walls of the Citadel’s gut, hearing screams but not seeing their owners, I knew I was experiencing something else completely. No wretch had ever been able to lose themselves to anger on such an impressive scale.

Gunshots wailed around us in time to the near-musical pounding of boots against dusty rock. A metallic scent was rapidly filling the air, and though my eyes had still not betrayed me in the relative dark, they were beginning to ache and itch from a thin film of sandy fog that was rising constantly from the Wife’s break-neck speed. Her squeezing had not let up for a moment as she forced me down narrow hallways that were so stuffy with the odor of sweat that I was forced to hold my breath. Pain shot up my spine from the base of my heels. My shoulders and arms clipped the narrow corners of every rocky doorway we were forced to traverse to avoid the conflict, conflict that was surely out there somewhere and yet too treacherously close for the Wife to risk facing. Gunshots had deafened me- I had reached a point where I could hear nothing but a sharp ringing in my own inner ear.

_Stop_ , I attempted to shout, all in vain because I was sure the Wife would not obey me, even if her grey bits had not been rattled by the trembling of the Citadel’s very bones beneath us. _No more of this_. _Please_. When she was unresponsive to my begging, I squeezed my eyes shut and stumbled along with nothing left but the flame-haired woman to guide me. The air was sour and tasted like ash, stagnant as difficult to swallow, like muddy aqua-cola. Moving through this putrid air reminded me of childhood, and the way my nails would gather muddy sand while I was digging up the liquid drug that the Immortan often warned us was to be tasted with caution. Addiction could be a dangerous thing.

I always thought the Immortan was a fucking crock. If he didn’t want us to get addicted to the cola, then why did he hand it out in a way that forced us to fight and kill over it? He was a sadist, at the very best. I was so very glad to know he was dead after I had gotten over my fear of what (or rather, _who_ ) was yet to come.

The Wife’s hand moved from my arm to my shoulder as our pace slowed, and though the rumbling of drums was still present beneath my soles, I had enough of a survival instinct left to open my eyes.

The Wife had taken me to a long, wide room, bursting from wall to ceiling with was looked to be pots stuffed to the brim with green paper. The pots, attached to chains and being rotated in a hypnotic rolling motion, moved from the floor towards the ceiling on guided tracks as they were sprinkled with aqua-cola from somewhere above our heads. I craned my head to look upwards: the rows of green starbursts rose up, up, up, filling my vision with the rare colour. Why so much green paper? And why so much wasted aqua-cola?

I could not stare for long. At the end of the room was a woman as small as me, and just as dark, too, waiting anxiously by an open circular door and waving the Wife over with her entire arm, snarling something at her before her eyes landed on me; her dark eyebrows quirked and she asked me something. Her tense shoulders and the subtle shake of her head as she looked between me and the Wife, as well as the warm funk of her breath washing across my face, was worrying, but the Wife simply shook my shoulders a little, pointed at my naked skull meat and moved us along. I looked over my shoulder long enough to see the tiny woman use all her strength to shut the heavy, circular door. Its booming _slam_ was the first sound that had reached my ears since the Blood Shed.

At that moment, I might have believed I had passed on, because after the door closed behind us, white filled my vision. However, I knew I could not be dead, because every step I took towards the mass of pale, wriggling matter was agony. As the Wife and I approached, our pace now slowed to a walk and our lungs burning from the run, my weary mind concentrated and wailed at the sight that then had me wishing I had gone to the Mother.

Swarming around my legs were children, all within their first few hundred days, fussing and crying and attempting to find any lick of comfort in a sea of strangers. Their white paint, so similar to the stuff I had begged the Wife to allow me to slather on my patients, made their status as War Pups clear as a cloudless day. Some clung to my skirts the moment they laid their watery eyes on me; others reached their pudgy hands up into my sightlines, urgently asking to be held.

I didn’t like grown pups. Newborns were easier than this. I sat down on the floor anyways.

I was swarmed by at least six of them, one on either of my thighs and the rest huddled around me, desperate for an arm to cling to as they babbled helplessly, unintelligible through their sobbing. Like the men I had raised up from ash all these months, all these little things truly wished for was for someone to assure them that they were going to live.

I looked up at the Wife. She was attempting to separate two older pups, who seemed to be clawing and spitting profanity at one-another in such a moment of intense stress, but her eyes were still on me.

I hated her blues. After she had opened up to me, tears spilling from those very blues like Before-Time rainfall, I convinced myself that forgiveness was a possibility. She had tried to separate my Boys from me once, and I had chalked it up to being a tactic of emotional and mental protection on her part, but she had done it again. She couldn’t even allow me to get them somewhere safe. She was so infatuated with the idea of saving someone who seemed important that she forgot the suffering of the rest.

“So y’let the children stay, did you?” I asked, and she looked down at me despite the noise. “Because they need help? Because they’re vulnerable? And the sick ones we left behind? What of them?”

She furrowed her brows, finally separating the boys with a mild glare. She saved her more infuriated expression for the likes of me, the wretch-waste who had demanded she stay and work. She had then said that she loved those boys, but now, I was sure those were all pretty words meant to keep me far away from them.

“They’re men. They can handle themselves.”

I cannot recall the noise I made or the huff I released or the slap I gave the floor with my palms, but the little ones around me scrambled and whined, jumping from their spots in my lap instantly. I got to my feet in a blinded rage and swayed as she furrowed her brows at me, as if she were feigning confusion at my display of anger. Stupid fucking _whore_!

I lunged at her before I had a chance to calm myself, tackling her middle and ramming her body into the ground as I had seen Ace do to the Organic Mechanic. My nails were in her face before she even had the chance to scream. Long nails, bad for mothers, and even worse for Wives.

Pups around us began wailing, some with terror and others with the burst of adrenaline that often accompanied witnessing a fight. I instinctively stuck my nails as deep into her cheek as possible and pulled backwards, though that did nothing but wrench back the first few layers of skin of her face and leave her bleeding bucketfuls of watery red body-ochre.

“They were _babies_! They were only babies!” I roared, and out of me poured the rage of a past I had attempted to stifle through kindness. I seemed to have forgotten that I was a desert creature with less worth that the lead of a bullet, and rage is not easy to rip from the jaws of such a wild creature.

Her palm flew and forced my lower jaw upwards, forcing my teeth into my tongue. “ _Who_ killed the world?!” she demanded through the saliva and snot. “They ravaged and raped everything in sight for the sake of glory!”

My fists curled, and I bellowed as I punched the Wife in the eye. Her head slamming back against the rock while her own nails pulled at the bony meat of my hips pumped me full of guzzoline that I hadn’t even realized I was lacking.

“They did what they did for _him_ , thoughtless _cunt_! _That_ _was all they knew!_ ” My words were punctuated by a spray of blood that was pouring from my bitten tongue. I painted her pale face and made it as red as her hair, crimson on crimson like a fire at sunset.

I jammed my dirtied fingers into her mouth despite her gnashing teeth and forced them down her gullet in an attempt to yank the back of her tongue from her lips, to silence her ignorance once and for all, to rip the face from the woman who had insisted I trust her and taken everything from me in the same span of time.

“ _Give them back t’me!_ ” I sobbed, her teeth and digits working hard to dispel my prying hand from between her lips. I did not relent. I would not relent again. The Wife’s eyes watered and she choked around my nails, the warm stench of her vomit reaching my nostrils as we squinted into each-other’s eyes. It hurt to see her struggle, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was hurting and no one wanted to witness my misery. I pushed; she choked; I cried.

Before I could get a proper hold on the Wife’s lie-weaver, a pair of unfamiliar arms grabbed the back of my tunic and tossed me from the site of the brawl, sending me flying through the rotted air and knocked me harshly against the floor when I landed. The breath was knocked from my fragile lungs and sent me into a harsh coughing fit. I curled in on myself, expecting to be kicked or shoved, but no blow ever came.

The little woman I had met at the entrance of this place, the one who had asked me something that I could not decipher through my bad hearing, had torn me away from the Wife and was currently kneeling over her, helping her sit up with one strong arm. I laid there as she spoke to her, squeezing her close and evidently trying to pry some information out of her as the cacophony of squawking rose around us with the displeasure of the pups.

The woman who had tossed me reared her head completely and curled her upper lip back, a carnal reaction upon finding the thing that had so clearly harmed someone she had loved laying in a heap on the ground. I felt no guilt. Just longing for my dearest boys.

“Look at what you did. This shit is ridiculous!” the little woman said, though I couldn’t tell initially if she was berating me or the Wife. “She wanted to help you! Don’t you realize how sick you are?”

I sat up on an elbow when I was certain that she was addressing me. I saw myself in the tan woman dressed in leathers and rough clothes, though her evident strength was a surprise. She reminded me of the legend of my mother, somehow. Mag-Dala, shrunken and reborn.

“I’m not sick!” I barked, dragging the back of my aching hand against my bloodied mouth. “I’m horrid t’look at and I haven’t slept in days, but _I ain’t no half-life!_ ” Besides dog-cough, I had never been ill, and I would refuse to be ill again by anyone’s terms.

The little woman helped the Wife up and supported her weight on her robust body. The Wife no longer seemed upset, but contemplative. She stared at me and the sea of pups hurrying to give her a cuddling. Not a single one came to me.

“Not sick, then, but absolutely _fucking_ manic,” she growled over the crowd before leading the Wife off towards a separate part of the enormous space, perhaps for privacy. I had not been offered privacy in a lifetime.

I curled on the cold floor and listened to distant gunshots and the accompanying whimpers of pups as the night went on, knees to my chin and blood dripping from my mouth. I had the men I had grown to love unprotected and potentially available to be slaughtered, and nearly killed the only woman that might have been able to offer me more despite their deaths. As Maude might say, I had burned my bridges trying to keep myself warm when all I ended up with was burns. I didn’t even know why anyone was rioting in such a place, where food and aqua-cola was abundant to all, by as the night silenced the sound of gunfire and the childlike whines around me, _I could not find it in me to care_.

I had never been more willing to die.


	19. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush finally gets some rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter contains mention/description of rape. Please be careful when reading.

Normalcy was a relative thing in a place as destroyed and inherently insane as the world we lived in. I had never known much about the Before-Time, but dustings of conversation like the sand clinging to the warm air after a storm often peaked my attention. Back then, many said, aqua-cola was hardly a thing of rarity, and food was hardly ever scarce if one was born into the right conditions. Our ancestors, so spoiled in their affluence, could afford to fill enormous pits with cola and play around in them when the weather grew warm, or could waste food to their heart’s delight with the constant assurance that they would always be able to find more. Such lives seemed impossible and filled me with jealousy, but I grew out of feelings like those very quickly. I didn’t have the luxury of feeling too strongly.

Reality itself seemed to have been swept away during my time behind the large metal door. For the first time in my own short existence, I was the minority, and adult in a world of tiny children. While I was familiar in dealing with the birth of pups and their first few months, I was equally as familiar with their deaths and burials. In my entire life, I had never been surrounded by so many children at once. At the time, it had not even occurred to me that I had probably delivered the grand majority of these squirming young boys.

Watching them move about from my position on the floor was the only distraction I had from my pain. My face, because of my bitten tongue and the two festering broken teeth that still had yet to be pulled from the back of my mouth, was swollen and painful to the point of warranting teasing from the older children, who could find no other way to amuse themselves than to dare each-other to get as close to me as possible before I snapped at them and attempted to swipe at their white bellies with my nails. When they decided they had finished antagonizing me, I slept. Time became liquid, exceedingly difficult to grasp. Minutes and hours were twin, and my worry tormented me even in my dreams. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I had spent too long this way. Rotting.

I knew, no matter how much I detested admitting it, that I had been saved in one sense or another. While my Boys were weakened by injury and illness, they had enough experience and pure grit to punch their way through another day. The Wife was present enough to see the deterioration of my state. She had cradled my life in her hands and held it close when it was threatened. Yet, the thought of what I had left behind still plagued me. Why had she taken me away by force when I had demanded to stay? Why? Just because I knew the answer did not mean I had to accept it.

The Wife had only dragged me from my post, from the oncoming carnage, because of the parts I had been gifted that sat useless between my legs, parts that served as nothing else but to tempt the other breed of human to violence. If I had been as unlucky as to have been born with a shaft, then I would have surely been dead at this point. Her love for me was as trivial and random as my womanly tubes. I would have been insulted, a few hundred days ago, but I couldn’t find any more anger in me, not after beating her like I had done. She didn’t deserve my words _and_ my fists. We had both learned what we had come to this wretched place to learn.

The Wife and the woman in leather had closed themselves off into one of the spare rooms of the overcrowded space for several hours. A few rooms a set of stairs, and an empty pit in the middle of it all that the pups delighted in jumping in and out of like insects jumped from their sandy nests. The space was shaped like a circle, a room I had heard various descriptions of from Pa during my earliest years. He would take me around the towers sometimes and point out the reflective, dome-like windows of this space. “That’s where Joe keeps his girls,” he told me, “Get any prettier and you might end up there too.”

In the beginning, it was the sheer volume of noise coming from the private room that had alarmed me. It was too raucous to understand a lick of what the Wife and the woman in leather were saying, but their aggravated tones were enough to indicate a squabble. The Wife seemed to be raising her voice quite a deal that first evening, and I could almost see her waving her arms and frizzing hair. The other woman was initially trying to be reasonable, I assumed, but eventually, she started screaming, too. There was nothing quite as disturbing as hearing two powerful women hiss without knowing the cause of the feud. After a short while, I figured that they were surely hissing about _me_. I felt like a pup again, needing to look over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t have a knife pointed at me.

I had only begun to feel the true horror of it all by the time the little ones in white had fallen asleep around me, huddled in groups and piles. Some lone souls mirrored me, resting alone and trying to find comfort in their own arms, rejected by their peers. The sight of them soothing themselves with their own thumbs and whimpering in the cold reminded me of my Pit, my first and favourite Boy. He was not here, in this mess, which was both a blessing and a curse. I did not want my sweet one dead, but if he was gone, at least he had memories of me at my best with him. I would hate for him to see me in such a state. I truly looked like a wretch. Almost like Jericho.

From the short hall leading to the spare private room, the woman in leather emerged wearing quite the hard expression. I would have found it comical in another setting and mocked her for it, but I was humbled in thinking that I was probably making a very similar expression back at her. She gingerly stepped over the sleeping bodies, and with nowhere else to go, I realized she was coming right at me.

She stopped a few feet from me and crouched, and even in the dark I could see her chewing on the inside of her lip as she looked me over. She was looking at me, but not in the eye, in the face. She was glaring at the swelling of my face, my bald head, my grimy condition. I couldn’t take a breath under her scrutiny.

“You have every reason in the world to be dead,” she said, and though my chest tightened at her harsh tone I did not waver. I could not do a thing, not if I wanted my Boys back.

“…I don’t want you here,” she murmured, “but my sister does. So, you’re going to stay. Get up.”

She turned before I had even started to get up, and though it was growing increasingly harder to remove myself from my semi-comfortable position on the floor, I stepped over sleeping children and followed the woman in leather to the room that I had mutely been forbidden to enter.

I took my time walking down the little hall to the Wife’s private room, because before this point, I had never seen the Before-Time so clearly. This room, empty of anyone but myself and the two other women, was filled with objects from the time before: frames that kept plush sleeping mats from the unforgiving stone, light fixtures that illuminated the room without the use of flame, and something so foreign that I had immense trouble keeping my eyes off of it, even in my troubled state. White paint had been splattered in curved symbols on the wall, symbols I did not recognize. Letters from the Before-Time language. Could these women write in the ancient tongue?

I turned away and bowed my eyes. The thought of them holding such strange new knowledge over me made my spine crawl with terror.

The Wife was sitting on one of the raised mats, straight-backed, watching me not with anger, but with concern and something else entirely. She indicated for me to sit across from her, on the other mat, but I declined with a shake of my head. I did not want to soil the antiques.

“I’m not upset with you,” she began, reaching out to me and taking my hand. She was so very soft, a state my hands surely must have once been in before I had arrived at this place.

“I beat y’senseless,” I said, dumbfounded, and to my surprise she smiled past her facial bruises.

“You aren’t well. It’s alright.” Her hand squeezed mine, but I could hear the lies in her words. No matter what the reason was, no one could ever appreciate abuse.

I pulled my hand out of hers and miserably turned to look over my shoulder, back out the hall. The gunshots had silenced themselves a while ago, it was surely safe now.

I must had squirmed or made some sort of sound, because the Wife stood and took me by the arms. “You can’t leave tonight. Soon,” she assured me, sweetly attempting to tuck my remaining hair behind my ear.

The promise of freedom only made me more agitated, and my entire core trembled with the thought of being stuck away from the men that had given my life purpose for an even longer period of time when I knew no one would take care of them. I was their mother, their Maude; they were problems that no one had the patience to deal with. I didn’t want them lonely. What if they needed something? My babes were left without their source of milk and they were damn near close to starving!

“Why not?” I demanded, wringing my useless, busy hands. “The fightin’ stopped! There’s no gunshot noises out there!”

The Wife’s face twisted, and she and the woman in leather exchanged a glance.

“Rush…” the Wife said carefully, tilting her head to assure our eyes were locked. “…Rush, they have to get rid of the bodies before we can let anyone back out.”

I pulled harshly against the Wife’s grasp, my heart ramming in my chest as I squirmed, my voice gone save a guttural whining sound that was escaping my raw throat. She hushed me and pulled me into her with as much gentility as she could, but I could clearly tell by the vicelike strength she was using to keep me folded against her chest that this embrace was only partially meant as a comfort. She was restraining me.

“Rush? Rush, you’re very sick,” she said, shuffling me to the side of the sleep mat and sitting me down.

“No,” I sobbed, my arms shooting out from around her body and my thin fingers clasping in the direction of the doorway. “I need my babies!”

“You can’t go like this,” she insisted, and her hand reached to stroke my remaining hair. I found no comfort in her touch.

Behind her, I saw the woman in leather puttering about the room, fetching what looked to be loose rags and blankets. They were preparing for my stay.

I was about to get stuck behind another door.

I screamed beyond any capabilities I had been previously known to possess. Bucking, throwing fists, biting slow fingers, wailing for Maude, for Mumma. I wanted Mumma to come help me. I needed a cuddling and a bite of lizard. Lizard always tasted fantastic on cold nights, fresh off of the fire. Pa would have to trade something wild if he wanted a full belly for all three of the family unit. I had grown so big in the past hundred days.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” the Wife said over the noise, still eerily calm. That’s what Jericho had once told me, before shoving me into the sand and shoving himself into me like I was truly nothing more than my father’s chattel.

The woman in leather came into view, holding one of the rags she had fetched in her hand. It was damp with something, and for some terrifying reason I knew it wasn’t natural. She was grimacing, but her eyes were shining with aqua-cola. Big waste. Pa hit me when I cried, still does. Nothing was worth wasting something as precious as cola, not even Jericho’s roughness. After the whole event had transpired, all he did was look me up and down and make a face at me. _Have no idea what he saw in you_ , he said, before heading off to have a word with Jericho about damaging Maude’s goods.

“You’re going to be okay,” the woman in leather said, reaching over the Wife’s shoulder and firmly pressing a length of cloth against my mouth.

The world got soft around the edges, and as my vision darkened comfortably, I thought of Two-Limb.

Mother in her eternal kingdom, we were alike, weren’t we?


	20. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush meets an old friend.

For something as universal as the sound of silence, there were, in my experience, many forms of quiet, and none were ever perfect. They portrayed such a grand number of moods, and most were comforting. Silence on a warm summer evening, curled between Maude and Pa, was bliss that I could not always relish in. However, on the other hand, there were types of stillness’s of sound that existed that had the capacity to send cool shivers up my spine. The lack of screams that came from a mother or a pup’s mouth after a birth still sometimes keeps me from sleep.

Awakening from my forced sleep to silence was initially quite soothing, what with still being so groggy. I slipped in and out of restless sleep multiple times before my sense returned to me somewhat fully, with a slow, ugly slither that felt as if it was choking me alive. There were no comforting breaths of sleeping children around me, the type of breaths that whistled and sighed with a rhythmic comfort that was difficult to see in their grown counterparts. It was the breath of those who had nothing to worry about despite starvation and sunburns. Their loss left me with nothing to assure me of my own breath in my lungs or the pounding shyly peeking out beneath my stark ribs. All I had to remind me that I was still alive was my pain. It made the silence sour.

My cheek had somehow become more swollen in the time it had taken for the pups to be taken from the cage where we had been sat for supposed protection, and my head was absolutely screaming with a fresh pain I had not experienced since childhood, one akin to monstrous dehydration. I seemed to be living my own personal doomsday: I was alone, painful, and unable to make the difference between the real source of my discomfort and the world around me. The tickle of floating dust in my nostrils was causing my throat to tighten, a wire noose strung from Joe’s balcony; the heat was causing the upmost destruction of my grey bits, lightning-quick lead sinking into my temple without even allowing me to take a breath; the taste of blood on the inside of my lips was metallic poison, the passionate kiss of a venomous, demonic snake who refused to remove his mouth from my own.

I shook my head violently to clear my own thoughts and rose to my elbows. No more of this. I needed to get away. I needed a way out, from this foreign cot and my own newly foreign head.

When I moved my aching feet to the side of the cot in order to reach the floor, my foggy brain was startled by the quiver of fabric leaking down my bare legs. My skirts had not been so long in hundreds of days. A ring of fabric pooled at my ankles, layering in a deep, unfamiliar dark green colour. I had been changed into a floor length skirt, something that puzzled me beyond belief. Care and clothing? I plucked my tunic from my chest and examined it at the end of my pinched fingers- that too was different. Worn, but clean. A faded grey. It had been a long while since I had worn something that was not the colour of old blood.

The clothing would have otherwise made me overheat, but with my skull meat exposed, I was comfortable despite my panic. My entire head felt like a stranger under my skin. Whoever had brought the clothes had also worked on my hair- the side that still retained hair was braided tightly against my scalp, perhaps to further avoid it falling out. Even my broken teeth had been pulled while I was asleep. My tongue could not even find the thinnest sliver of tooth where my infected chompers used to be. My face was still swollen, but I was better. Someone had made me better.

I forced myself to my feet despite my spinning head and strange sluggishness. My eyes were slow to drift about the room, but I could tell the Wife and the woman in leather were not there with me. They seemed to match me in difficulty and hard-headedness; if I was up before I was ready to be, they would have wrestled me back into the metal-framed cot. You only truly know how much of a rotten, stubborn creature you are until another, even more rotten beast plops its ass on your turf.

My feet were still bare as they lazily shuffled around on the stone, attempting to make their way out into the main room. Humans were the only animals who seemed to find discomfort in total silence, or rather, what the silence insinuated. It made me wonder where the Wife and her tiny companion had gone.

Remnants of their old life before the fall of the mutt so many compared to the sun stuck out at me as I wandered, slowly, back towards the reality lurking behind the open circular door. The doorway to the main room was lined with Before-Time objects I had never had the opportunity to explore, mostly reading material. I knew the rectangular blocks of what looked to be smooth, sun-dried bricks contained the knowledge of the old world, because I could recognize the Before-Time language pressed onto every side of the foreign objects. I did, for once, not have the energy to attempt to decipher what exactly this alien information was attempting to communicate through the pictures posted on a handful of the bricks. I was suffering, and the painful had no use for the superfluous.

The overflow of littered word-bricks made the hallway narrower than it should have been, but I was used to dealing with cramped spaces. The Boys, when in their collective nasty and playful moods, were particularly grabby and delighted in pressing in around me, only to jostle me about and bark at me for lazing when I became too comfortable. However, when they had filled their bellies with rations and they had been freshly bandaged, I would be permitted to sit closely to them. Sometimes, they would even play with my hair like curious infants. Of course, this was all before it had begun to fall out.

The room was dead where the pups had once been. I could hear the slap of my own bare, heavy feet against the ground. It was echoic, and if I were still a child I knew I would have delighted in shouting into the silence, if only to hear the familiarity of my own voice shout right back at me. Personal things were loose, scattered across the floor: short boots laces meant for tiny feet, some rusted nuts piled high in the middle of the room and probably used as trading tokens, even the odd lost tool that they had probably snuck into the room when they were being passed through. The only thing left of them besides these precious things were their boot prints, small but purposeful.

White paint was slapped on the floor amid the mess, more Before-Time speech, like a clear moon on a black night. War Pup paint mingled with the symbols. The very soul of the pups, their own pale paint, muddled and made the message unclear. Whatever the Wives had wanted to get across while painting this was not clear, not anymore.

The hair on the back of my neck crawled suddenly, reacting to a phantom breeze. I was watching the room, but I was not watching it alone. I had learned to feel danger before it came. It was how I stayed alive, all those months with all those men.

A proper War Boy stood posted, stone-faced but still somehow bitter, in the arc of the doorway, arms straightened at his sides with his chest out like a self-righteous lizard hovering around his mound of sand. I recognized him- that impressive height and those wide shoulders and that stick up his ass.

The man who had punched out my teeth stared at me for a second before he dared part those ugly, thin lips. I damn near expected him to snarl at me like he had then; I instinctively dug my feet into the ground, expecting a harsh blow despite the distance between us. One must always bunker down the moment they see a storm, no matter how far away it seems.

“Calm down, wretch,” he said, though nothing about his tone matched his instructions, like advising a burn victim to go and roast in the sun. “I don’t want this anymore than you do. Cripes, you’re fuckin’ disgusting… let’s go before this ends up nastier than it needs to be.”

He seemed calmer than the last time I saw him, but not in a sense where he was feeling better. He looked different, bagged eyes and a looser posture. He was tired, and he didn’t want to be here. I couldn’t say I felt much different.

I thoughtlessly reached for the knife I had lost and backed away from him, squinting at him to focus my stinging eyes. Why was he here? Was I asleep? I was too painful to be. Why would the Mother tease me with more than I could handle, especially now, after I had gone through _so_ _much_?

“…what the _fuck_ is wrong with you?” I breathed, and though I knew he could throttle me for even insinuating that his manly graces were anything less than extraordinary, the throbbing in my head and limbs kept me from wisely shutting my mouth.

His arms crossed, and like the bags under his eyes, he swelled a bit. Angry. I didn’t have the cognitive faculties at the time to realize how gravely I had fucked myself over.

I could nearly hear the rattle of a serpentine tail as he approached from the outside, where the green paper in basket still hung on shivering chains. I envied their safety in height and numbers.

My mouth was too big for my own good. I had learned as much thanks to this very Boy. I also had grown enough to realize that I had no reason for my anger, truly. He hadn’t even really insulted me yet.

I should have known better, I should have known better, _I should have known better_.

“I’ll crack you like an egg, shithead,” he snarled, but I could tell it was all an act. He would have punched me by now, if he had wanted to. And yet his hands were still in fists at his sides. It only encouraged me further. Perhaps it was the drugs or the fact that the Wife had been dull enough to leave me alone, but I had the rampant urge to tear this fucker a new one.

I held a finger up at him, which stopped him in his tracks. I caught him off guard before a single sound could emerge from his throat.

“No. Why the _fuck_ are y’here? Y’come trailin’ in after damn near _killin’ me_ the last time I saw your ugly face and y’just expect me t’follow you t’Mother-knows-where when everyone else is gone? Get _fucked_. I am too _fuckin’_ tired for this shit! Crack m’like an egg if y’want, but y’need t’know that y’are a ridiculously rusted piece of scrap if y’think I’m actually gonna listen t _’anythin’_ y’have t’spill from your gapin’ gob!”

I spread my arms at him to demonstrate my total lack of patience with him. However, I didn’t even have enough time to clap my hands to my meager thighs and make that satisfying sound that marked the end of a conquered argument.

I was grabbed by the time my arms were halfway down to my sides, and I didn’t even have the opportunity to scream before I was plucked from the ground from my pits, swung over the asshole’s broad shoulder, and dangled from my knees as I was carried out the door.

Blood rushed to my head as my forehead came into contact with his bare back. His paint was beginning to wear off where his belt was clinging to his hips, and I could feel the sway of his body, like a pup would in its mother’s arms. However, the swaying was less than comforting for me.

“Sister Capable wants you to wash. Taking you to the Watering Hole. _Fuck_ , nothing’s simple with you, is it, rat?” he spat, giving me a good jostle as he tightened the grip he had around my knees.

My lone braid dangled into my eyes as the realization set in- so the Wife left me alone with the War Boy on purpose. She knew I wouldn’t be willing to go with her, so she sent someone to fetch me by force. Whether she knew exactly what this man had done to me or not was a mystery, but I didn’t doubt that she had some sort of divine ability to snoop and get what she wanted out of certain people. She got a nurse out of a midwife, after all.

I was too weak to struggle for very long, though that did not keep me from tormenting the man who was carrying me about like a dead carcass. If he had had a full head of hair, I might have resorted to my childhood tactics of tugging on locks. With my options have been shaved down, I let the natural, bodily distaste for the situation show. I spewed a couple of times, due to the drugs and the repetitive motion of his body swaying, and I was pleased to see some of the vomit hit the back of his trouser legs. I managed to chuckle with drunken relish at his pissed groaning, but my enjoyment in his disgust did not last very long. He began to take it upon himself to nick me against the rocky edges of halls every time we were forced to turn a corner.  The back of my arms and ribs were knocked harshly, dragged against the stone, or just simply rammed into the wall.

By the time we reached what the asshole had called the Watering Hole, I was scraped up completely, and he was reeking of sick. Without even speaking, I’m certain he had declared a draw, for the moment we reached that pair of familiar, monstrous doors, doors I had only ever seen on one other occasion with Pit at my side, I was all but tossed to the ground.

I landed on a grate with a metallic _clang_ , one I hadn’t noticed on my initial visit to this place with Pit, but that clearly made its presence known to me when I nearly knocked myself into darkness by smacking my already muddled head against it with a whine.

“ _Stay!_ ” he hissed, sticking his own thick finger in my face as I groaned and sat up from the harsh, sandy floor. I lunged to bite him, but he moved away too quickly. Fuckhead.

Other War Boys, all younger than me but about the same age as my captor, gave the asshole raised eyebrows and threw snickering insults his way.

“Blackout, y’got a little somethin’…” one boy started, gesturing to the asshole’s lower half in broad circles with his open palm.

The asshole looked as if he wanted to punch his fellow War Boy in the teeth, as he had done to me. But instead, he simply grumbled and irritable ‘ _I know_ ’ before stalking off down the opposite hall, shaking his wet pant leg like a dingo with mites.

I recognized a pair of shadows in the hall the asshole was moving towards- the Wife and the woman in leather were both stood there, talking in low tones and purposefully not looking in my direction. I figured that they must have known that I was there- the asshole had made a grand display of my arrival, what with launching me halfway across the room, but the Wife especially was focused on keeping her neck stiff, unable to meet by gaze for some reason. Perhaps she was finally feeling remorseful for drugging me.

I must have sat there for at least a couple of hours, curled on the floor and occasionally vomiting into the grate beside me, rubbing my sore limbs and attempting to come to terms with my new sense of self. I was officially a pet of the Wife. The War Boys steered clear of me for the most part, which I was unused to after the time I had spent with needy creatures like Two-Limb. Even Ace, reserved in his old age, would have surely come over to inspect what was the matter with me at least once. They knew something I didn’t. They _must_ have.

The third hour mark came and went before I decided they were not going to wash me. It didn’t take much longer to realize that _nothing_ was happening.  For someone who had insinuated, time and time again, that I would be returned to the Bloodshed upon my recovery, the Wife was making no attempts to do anything to get them back to me. While I waited, I paid attention to the rising smell of sweat and something else, something worse, around me.

One of the least useful senses to a midwife was her sense of smell. If anything, such a thing could be a nuisance in the right circumstances- if a woman sullied herself while giving birth, for example, the smell could sometimes be so disgusting that we would need to air out the tent by pulling back the flaps. And smells always lingered, especially the bad ones.

The smell was coming from the grate, though it was more foul than vomit, I could tell. It was wafting up and into the room, though the Boys there with me didn’t seem to notice. They must have been used to the scent. The Wife and the woman in leather, however, still on their side of the room, were grimacing and gagging quietly, attempting to keep their revolted expressions from me. I could see them, of course. I could always see them.

The scent was getting stronger, more pungent. Soon it felt like I was bathing in it. I couldn’t help it- before I could control myself, right my thoughts and attempt to plug my nose, I became a sticky-fingered, curious child again. I moved to my knees and peered into the grate.

Death incarnate stared right back at me.

Bodies parts, mangled and severed, limbs and torsos and thighs, were being carried on tarps in the narrow, short hall below the grate by sweating War Boys. Those who were not carrying the limbs were holding on heavy buckets full of water. They were heading in the direction from whence the asshole and I had come: they were taking the victims to the room with the circular door.

My eyesight was still fuzzy, but I leaned in closer and squinted in order to get a better look at the bodies. One poor bastard was only a head and a torso. The back of his neck was aggressively cracked into a hump, perfectly framed by a circular scar. A War Boy brand.

One of the Boys carrying the tarps tripped, and the rotten limbs rolled and jumped, making the flies that had landed to feast on the old flesh scatter and buzz in angry storm cloud of a swarm. The head and torso rolled over so I could see the man’s face.

He was blonde and beautiful. The one who had protected me from Two-Limb’s wrath. I couldn’t even find it in my consciousness to vomit as more and more familiar faces, legs, arms, and shaved scalps were hauled away and out of sight, leaving only the sound and smell of mourning in their wake.

My babies were dead.


	21. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush sees everything in pieces.

I had heard far too many expressions from the Before-Time come from Maude’s lips that made little sense, both in and out of their respective contexts. When I was younger, and in need of entertainment while we were awaiting a pup to make themselves ready to emerge from their mother’s belly, she would sometimes try to explain some of the funnier of her sayings to make me giggle. ‘Raining cats and dogs’ was a favourite of mine, due to the multiple layers of ancient knowledge that I had to mentally wade through in order to understand even a lick of what my mother was jabbering on about. ‘Rain’ was cola that used to pour from the sky before the old folks went to war. ‘Cats’ were tiny, fuzzy creatures that jumped leaps and bounds with ease and that drank milk like human folk. ‘Dogs’ were like dingoes, and I had seen mutts before. The expression meant that there was lots of cola falling from the blue above, but I always imagined the wild mutts and the milk-drinkers hopping out of dust clouds, biting at lightning. It was only in the minds of pups and powerful folk that such delusions could become fact in their grey bits, if only for a little while.

One saying that I hated while I was growing was ‘it’s easy to forget’, probably because it gravely insulted me on some level. I never forgot _anything_ , back then. I could recall facts, faces, conversations, like I was a wandering History Woman who had them stamped into her own skin. I could make mistakes, certainly, but they were never due to forgetfulness. They were due to chaos, to stress, to the screaming and blood that never seemed to leave my side, a second shadow. Distraction made me fumble; overworking made me rot and rust all at once.

I hated that phrase even more after I had found out about my babies. Not because I thought I was above the advice in those words, but because it had occurred to me that they were more truthful than anything else I would ever come to hear.

When I ran back towards the room with the circular door, I forgot, and I could not even characterize it as easy. It was mindless, simpler than simple, a breathless breath. I knew people were following me, because I could hear something stalking and yelling, like the encroaching growl of a distant engine, but I had resorted to becoming one of the mutts and milk-drinkers of my youth, animal. Time was of the essence, that was another one of Maude’s favourites. I was thinking, perhaps, that if I moved quickly enough, I might be able to string them back from their state of broken pieces and let them live again. They were rotting in my care, but they had blood pumping in them and they still had enough nastiness to fight when the war drums called them to the road. They were like me: painfully unwilling to die.

Even if I hadn’t a clue where I was going in this ant hill of a stronghold, the sounds of a crowd drew me towards my destination. I didn’t know what I was expecting when I reached the threshold, the gates that my babies would be delivered into, but the huffing of aggravated, exhausted people huddle together in a single-file line was more than a surprise.

Amid the green paper exploding from their baskets and twirling on chains, dirtied folk with the tired eyes and hunched shoulders of workers grumbled and shuffled forwards in slow, methodical movements as the group moved in a sluggish hook formation, leading in and out of the room where I had been drugged. Those who wandered in sported frowns and agitated expressions; those who wandered out were calm and held heavy packages wrapped in thin fabric in their arms.

I knew what they were holding.  And the thought of my babies being passed out to strangers for the feasting made understand something I had long ago questioned.

When women couldn’t pay us, they offered us their dead pups for food, but Maude had a moral compass about that sort of thing and never accepted. I understood why, now. Hunger should never hold a higher price than a human life, no matter what the growling our gutty works made or how desperately we begged for a morsel. Life was life, and taking it away for selfish reasons was and always would remain beyond all reasonable comprehension.

I accelerated my pace to something I dared say otherworldly, because I could feel my knees jangling under my skin as my toughened feet slapped against the floor. People in the line hollered and snarled at me as I passed them, their restlessness overtaking them like a disease as I rushed passed them. I was sure if I had brought myself to that place but an hour or so later than I had originally arrived, I would have been choked to death for even considering that my needs were above theirs.

Joe had always said that aqua cola made folks crazy. I was witnessing that hunger made them beasts.

I managed to squeeze my way through the crowded doorway without anyone snatching my braided tail, though I did feel annoyed hands snatching at my longer skirts and the uproar of a frustrated crowd as I followed the piercing light the glass dome was allowing into the space.

To this day, I wish the sun had blinded me. I wish I didn’t have to see what I had come across. Perhaps that day was the word of the Mother, her punishment to me for ever thinking I was worth more than the lovely men I treated, or that I deserved to be treated differently simply because my profession was one of worth. The truth of the matter was, I was still human, and all humans were equal before the Mother, in the end. Who was I, a midwife rising to the heights of gods, to believe I _was_ one?

In the center of the room, in the pit I had originally noticed but dismissed, piled high like the stomped bones of a sun-dried carcass, were the dismembered bodies of my boys, stacked high and being wrapped up and handed off like simple pieces of meat to hungry folks, all of which looked like me. Wretches. Wretches who I should have known better than anyone, who I should have understood. But in my sorrow, I was senseless.

I don’t remember collapsing and being moved. But I do clearly recall the Wife sobbing at the sight of me and explaining what had happened. Stray phrases lingered, stitched into the fabric of my mind with wire instead of thread.

_Rations were low. People were hungry. They needed someone to blame. We can’t just throw the bodies now, Rush. People are starving. It’s the way things are. It’s the way things are. It’s the way things are._

She said other things too, but I didn’t listen. I was thinking about Joe- it was a nice thought, letting Wretches up here, trying to feed them all, trying to make one big fucking family, but shit wasn’t so easy in a place like this. At least Joe had half the fucking mind to keep the desperate folk away from others, and punish them with a lack of water when they acted up. In the Wife’s world, she did not smack the thieving child, but praised her and cooed at her. No one was punished except for those who had croaked. They had their honor ripped from them, post-mortem.

By the time the last man had been sent off with his cut of meat, leaving nothing but lost heads in his wake, staring blankly up into the heavens or down at the dirt, I had been lightly drugged twice and even physically restrained with fabric around the ankles and wrists. Dragged back to the Watering Hole, purposefully sat away from the grate where I had smelled my babies’ corpses, forced to sit beside the Wife and the woman in leather until my terrified sorrow melted to numbness and they trusted me with standing and wandering on my own.

I watched the Wife as I paced the space; she seemed just as disturbed as I was, and I knew why. Stuck in a cycle of grief in relief, she was, so much I could tell; grieving for the deaths of innocents, relieved that said innocents were gone and did not have to be on her mind any longer. She had killed some folk, but she had also removed the sour memory that accompanied their presence in her care from her mind. Painful happiness, like removing an insect’s stinger from one’s own arm to keep one’s self from swelling up too harshly.

However, there was something different about the Wife’s reaction to the bad news, something out of the norm. She kept making a wincing expression, one made after being slapped and expecting the stinging blow of knuckles just after the bite of an open palm. There was more to come from this pain, and whatever it was, she didn’t want to tell me.

The woman in leather was irritated with her. I could tell that, too. She stood with her back to the wall, eyes low, speaking to her, her mouth moving in harsh angles and exposing her teeth. She was trying to keep it subtle, her displeasure, trying to make it seem as if everything was normal, but that too was nothing but a mask. The Wife was being scolded. And as she delivered the sinister hiss of insults and savagery, she kept looking at me. I was involved. I was always involved.

I don’t know how long I was there for, pausing my pacing, spewing like I had that morning from the new drugs and rubbing my raw skin of my wrists, but the sun came down long before I was approached again by another person. I had officially been labelled looney in the few hours I had been around these younger War Boys. They were all delighted and horrified of my presence, and I’m sure if they had been a bit younger, they surely would have reached out and tugged on my remaining hair just to see if they could illicit a reaction from me. I had no one to come to my defense. The only thing I had with which to soothe myself were the old, puckered scars on my arms. Memories of a time both far better and worse than they had ever been for me.

Eventually I fell asleep on the floor, clutching myself, stuck in a petrified state. Time moved both slowly and quickly, with emotional exhaustion. Blinks turned into long bouts of rest; squeezing my eyes shut for what felt like hours were only truly common minutes. I thought about Maude, what she might tell me at that time, but she was silent in my head. Even she would be mourning. Who wouldn’t be?

I dreamt of the night that Pa had left Maude and I. Details were blurry. My brain had cut me off from knowing too much, perhaps to protect my sanity, but I pushed through the storm clouds in my mind and struggled to find meaning in the strange sensations I was experiencing all over again. The sound of boots shuffling in the falling sand; the smell of something burning over a distant fire; the scruff of Pa’s beard as he leaned over to press his lips to my cheek in a stale kiss.

To this day, I will never know why Pa left. My mind had settled on believing that it was because he found better opportunities for himself somewhere fantastic; when I was younger, I always believed he would come back to us and bring us to where he had gone. Part of me still wanted to believe that. Despite having come to a happy conclusion, I still thought of Pa on most days. Perhaps it was because I knew I would never see him again no matter how hard I prayed. Or, perhaps it was because I was secretly pleased once he was gone. Just like the Wife, with my babies.

In my dream, Pa leaned over to kiss me, as he always did when I remembered him in this sense, though something was off about this evening’s recollection of events- when he leaned over, he put his mouth right up against the shell of my ear, and he whispered to me. His breath was hot and moist. I was immobilized by the foreign affection.

_They aren’t all dead._

I woke up in a cold sweat, but I was not alone there, sore and broken on the floor. When I shot up, desperately tossing my head in the darkness in order to find the source of the voice who was feeding me such pretty lies, I did not find my father. Instead, the woman in leather sat there stiffly in the dark, hands on her knees as she rested her weight on her thighs. She looked solemn, possibly because she knew I had heard her well.

My shattered heart trembled as I scooted towards her. I could hear my own whimpering breath.

“… _what did you say?”_ I asked, but she shook her head at me. She didn’t need to say it again.

“I’m not supposed to tell you. Capable, she—she thinks this isn’t right. Thinks those Boys were doing you more harm than good. But you deserve to know.” Her tone was even, but hard.

I couldn’t keep my voice down. I couldn’t even _think_. Words fell hard and fast as I grabbed her sleeves and shook her.

“ _Where?! Where?!_ ” I screamed, my voice bouncing off of the high walls, but the woman in leather remained dead silent as she pried my hands off of her.

“They’re not in good shape,” she continued, not even raising her voice for a moment. “I don’t know how long they might last.”

“ _Let me see!”_ I roared, and in the dark behind the woman in leather, I could hear grumbling and shuffling. The woman in leather grabbed my wrist and squeezed, silencing me as she brought me to my feet.

She was going against the Wife’s word. It impressed me. I liked this woman, tiny but fierce as she was. She inspired hope in me.

We stumbled around in the dark for a few moments, but the woman in leather knew exactly where we were headed. I heard the creaking of a door opening, and my heart stopped and started. We were headed inside the Watering Hole, into the place Pit had attempted to take me all those days ago.

The door was shut behind us, and the room got even darker than it had been out in the hall. Not a drop of light infiltrated the space, most likely to keep the water within cool. The woman in leather was prepared for that, too. She released my hand and, without a minute, light filled the room from a lamp she was cradling in her palm.

Light fill my eyes, and so did the sight of my remaining Boys.

Two broken and bruised figures sat hunched in the far corner of the room, bloodied nearly beyond recognition. But I knew.

I knew those missing limbs. I knew that bandaged face. I knew that ugly snarl, and those lumps, and those scar-like wrinkles.

My Ace and my Two-Limb were alive.


	22. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush takes care of her boys.

Somehow, knowing I would not be taken from those I had loved so much again could only be described as getting shot in the knees by Ace and Slit’s eyes, four barrels that fired blindly in the new light and got me floored before I could even find it in me to scream. For a moment, I even thought I heard them boom like guns, as the paired of them made furious snarling and growling noises at the Wife. Their respective safeties were clicked on one I began moving- maybe seeing that I was alive kept them from turning feral, at least at that moment.

Ace held his arms out to me and said nothing when I scrambled over, couldn’t even find it in himself to scold me when I began howling and clinging to him despite his multiple injuries. His arms were utterly torn apart, both bruised and sliced to the point of near-uselessness, and yet he still held me fiercely, as if he did not have it in himself to let me leave again. Flaps of his loose skin had been pinned to his arms with the laces of his boots, and though dried blood soaked the thin roped and fresher life juice dripped eagerly from the wounds, there was no pus in sight. The Mother must have had her eye on him. I had never seen someone avoid infection and death as well as Ace did.

I could distinctly hear the woman in leather place her oil lamp down where she was stood before turning and making her way outside. Already, I could hear the shrill sounds of another woman’s voice warbling at her from behind the large doors. As the woman in leather shut them with a thunderous slam and a cloud of fine dust and sand, I knew she had partially regretted what she had done. She would have to face the Wife’s wrath, and that was a feat in itself. I would have to be careful around her from then on. I could sense she was running short on her charitability.

With the light now left to ourselves, I hurried to pull the flame closer to my Boys in order to check over their wounds, but Slit irritably turned away from the lamp and huffed through his nose. He had not breathed a word since I had arrived, and he did not even dare to turn and face me. He was hunched over his legs and clutching the back of his head with his remaining hand. Yet, I knew that he knew it was me. If he thought I was someone else, he would have walloped me. That much, I know.

“C’mon, Two-Limb, _s’okay_ now,” I crooned softly past my hiccupping sobs, reaching out gingerly in order to draw my fingers down the back of his shoulder. His entire upper backed was scraped raw, looking like a piece of metal with half of the rust scrubbed from its surface. Dried blood had soiled him down to the waist, and I could tell he was severely uncomfortable, because he kept curling his shoulders inwards to avoid my touch.

“Leave ‘im, girly, ‘e ain’t in good shape,” Ace advised. The hoarseness of his voice drew me away. The quality of his speech sounded monstrous, as if he had been screaming or crying for hours.

“Let m’see, I can’t make things worse,” I insisted regardless, wrapping my hand around Slit’s arm. He gurgled when I touched him, twitching uncontrollably with the discomfort, before slowly shifting his weight over so that he could face me.

His face was absolutely destroyed. The cheeks I had sewn up so many months ago with my own hair were only half-healed and, upon closer inspection, were beginning to scarify separately, creating three completely independent cheeks on his mouth. Surprisingly, that was the very least of my worries.

His mouth was an absolute warzone. His lips were being pulled in a score of different directions, having turned purple and black from surface bruising and major swelling. Yellow pus was dripping in fat droplets from the corners of his mouth, but he could not wipe them away. His mouth was clamped shut due to a series of small, metallic staples, haphazardly driven into his face in a rushed effort to keep his mouth shut, and it didn’t look as if he could fit his thick fingers between the metal bars in order to wipe the foul smelling drippings away. All he could do was let the pus roll down to the point of his chin and drip to the floor. A tiny moisture patch was already forming at his feet.

I didn’t think it would be possible to disfigure the poor man more than he already was, but someone had managed to ruin him. He huffed and attempted to pull his mouth apart, but that just caused a stream of fresh blood to splatter from his lips. A mixture of blood and pus splattered across my face, but I shook it off with a shake of my head and rapidly placed a hand beneath his chin and the other on top of his head. I began forcing his mouth closed despite his angry trilling, but with some pressure he got the point. He yanked his head away from me and shoved his bloody palm at the side of my head. A red handprint was left behind. Fucking rustbucket. His remaining temper was a good sign, at least.

“Mother almighty, what did they do t’you?” I hissed through a breath, reaching out to touch his sore mouth with the pads of my fingers. My contact with the cool metal came all too quickly; before I could even begin applying pressure on his mouth, Slit reared his ugly head and slammed his forehead against mine with a surprisingly loud _thunk_.

I fell back on my tailbone and wined loudly as I clutched at my sore head. Any lower and he would have surely shattered my nose. Though he couldn’t open his mouth to shout at me, I could hear a repeated sound he was attempting to make without using his lips.

_Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!_

“Hey! Pup! That’s _enough_!” Ace ordered, clapping his large hand over Slit’s forehead and grinding his skull back against the wall. Slit vocalized loudly from behind his staples, but ended slumped down against the cool ground once he realized he wouldn’t be understood regardless of his wordless bitching.

“He’s a mess,” I mourned, watching as Slit numbly caressed the stump of his missing hand.

Ace took a seat at my side, resting his bloodied arms on his knees with a sigh. “Rioters. Wanted t’make an example outta ‘im. Held ‘im down and started shovin’ metal into ‘is face, wanted t’shut ‘im up good before slicing his throat. By the time they were done and ready to cut ‘im apart… new management showed up and shut ‘em down.”

“New management?” I breathed, and a chill crawled up my spine.

Ace nodded numbly. “Furiosa an’ her fuckin’ traitorin’ folk.” He spat into the ground to emphasize his point. I didn’t prod him further regarding the war hero. She was a myth I never wanted to encounter.

“…and you?” I asked, reaching out to touch his arm. He took my hand in his with a huffing laughed and squeezed softly.

“Nothin’. Didn’t have no weapons, had t’get crafty, is all. Grabbed the Organic Mechanic and tried usin’ ‘im as a meat shield, but when that didn’t work, I grabbed a wretch by the throat, tossed ‘im next t’the Organic’s spot, and used the fat fuck’s arm t’leave him blue and foamin’. Squirmy bastard was hidin’ a sharp in his sleeve and tried t’get me t’let go. Just scrapes, really. Just scrapes.”

Ace holding my hand as he was doing was an extensive blessing. Truly, he was the one whose body I was most afraid to see in that huge pile of my Boys. When I hadn’t seen him in the pile of corpses, I figured he was simply not going to be offered up as meat. He had so many lumps, I wasn’t sure how attractive he’d be as a meal, even to the starved and desperate. He was old enough to know how to defend himself without needing to rush into battle, I should have figured that he was still alive.

Slit, on the other hand… Slit was living on complete luck. The Mother wouldn’t shelter someone so foolish, and I doubt his fucked up god cared enough about a simple soldier. The cruelty of those who had found him first was the only thing that allowed him to live. Though, I know that even their cruelty would catch up with him.

“…’e won’t last much longer with those staples. How long has it been since e’s eaten? Had cola?” I asked.

“Hasn’t eaten since y’left. He’s managed some cola, but he keeps tearin’ himself a new damn mouth hole every time ‘e tries t’take a slurpin’,” he said.

“And ‘is grey bits? ‘E seems… all rattled-like,” I grimaced, rubbing the tender spot on my forehead. When had he started head-butting? He usually began with spitting or rubbing his fluids all over me before he resorted to aggression.

Ace’s face greyed and turned somber, and without warning, he reached out and affectionately palmed the naked side of my head, patted me there. I flinched away slightly from the touch, but I still let him hold my hand.

“We lost lots o’ Boys, durin’ that war,” he said bitterly, and we both lost as Slit miserably rolled onto his side in an attempt to escape our conversation. He must have known what we were talking about, to a degree, and he didn’t like being mentioned. “E’s… e’s just rememberin’ ‘em all.”

I wondered exactly who this ugly creature could have attracted into friendship, especially when he was healthy, with two angry fists and proper legs to kick and tussle with. Ace seemed to tolerate him, but that was only because Slit was required to submit. Refusing to comply with Ace’s demands was asking for punishment. I didn’t know who else could tolerate such a man. Whoever else it had been must have been damn-near saintly.

“We have t’get those staples out,” I decided, but Ace simply gestured to his beltless pants in response.

“No tools. An’ I doubt the Wife would let you back in the bloodshed. You’re walkin’ the razor’s edge, girly.”

“I’m not askin’ for any more favours from that bitch, anyhow. Knowin’ her, I’ll just end up _screwed_ again,” I snarled. My anger dulled at the sight of Slit miserably running his stump hand across his shut mouth. This wasn’t about my anger, in the end. This was never even about me to start with.

“No use askin’ for favours. Citadel’s gone t’shit. We have t’fend for ourselves like a trio o’rusted dingoes, pickin’ scraps,” Ace muttered.

I watched the flame dance apathetically between the three of us. Slit wouldn’t last much longer if we stayed, but Citadel after dark, especially during these times, was not a place I wanted to navigate alone. We were stuck until dawn, with only a tiny flame to keep us from the dark.

When my gaze wandered from the flame, it fell again on Ace’s ruined arms. Even if he had died from his wounds, no one would want a corpse that had already been sliced. Breeding turf for flies and a nursery for maggots, they were. Even a nice, hot fire wouldn’t kill all the nasty critters living inside him. I knew that I would certainly rather starve than die fever-looney.

The dark hairs on my arms and neck raised to attention. Flame. We didn’t have anything to cook over it, but Mother in her eternal kingdom, _we had flame_. I refused to just sit here for hours, waiting for a morning that might bring nothing but more waiting. There was work to be done.

“Ace, let m’see your arms,” I demanded, but didn’t wait for him to question my curiosity. I snatched him at the wrist and elbow and lifted his arm to my eyes. Besides a few wonky-looking cuts, the majority of the slices were clean and ran in long, straight lines. I could fix this. I knew that I could fix this.

Ace seemed to be able to read my mind regarding the procedure I was planning. He puffed out his chest and rolled his shoulders as I plucked carefully at the laces, emotionlessly staring into the tiny flame.

“I can’t promise y’that I won’t scream,” he said, and I smiled carefully up at him, the way I would at worried mothers who were getting too weak to push.

“I got tough ears. Trust me. Y’just got t’stay still for me, Old Balls,” I said, and he smiled right back at me.

I placed one of his arms across my thigh and balanced the small lamp on my other thigh. I had never closed a wound with fire, but this was all I could do. Sure, Ace might end up with scars, but this would keep him from death for now. There was no way of knowing if the Mother would keep her eye on him forever.

I picked up the lamp and held it by his arm. I could feel Slit’s eyes on us, but somehow, their respective gazes became one as I looked into Ace’s face. He nodded at me. It was now my opportunity to hurt for others.

The smell of burning flesh reached my nostrils just as Ace’s howling growls swarmed my ears. I watched his flesh melt and bond back with itself with the aid of my pinched fingers. Blood and smoke spurted from Ace’s arm like debris spurted out of storm clouds. Periodically, I had to turn back and check on Slit, who was vomiting but could not expel the sick. I had to go over a handful of times, wriggle my thin pinky finger between the metallic staples, and forced it between his lips in order for the sick to drip out of his mouth, down my arm, and onto the floor to join the pile of pus his wounded face had started there. When he was able to breathe again, I could only wipe my hands on my new skirts and go back to Ace, trying desperately not to have the same reaction.

The scent made me gag, but it also reminded me of a childhood full of ignorance. How could I have ever wanted to eat another person?

Perhaps I didn’t mind the thought because I never had to watch them roasting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know that if you guys are hungry for some more Rush content, myself and Weirdness_Unlimited have begun writing a new story in which Rush and Weirdness's characters are featured! 
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/15767388/chapters/36676629
> 
> Please check it out and thanks again for reading and supporting Midwife Rising. c:


	23. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush fights with metal.

I had never held a grown man in my arms before.

I hadn’t lived long enough to say that I had ever been in love. Love was for the fools who did not work hard enough and who had enough energy to pass along to another person; love made people die young; love was certainly not something I could afford to dream of, unless I enjoyed the feeling of being let down. Cradling anyone with every bit of my Mother-given attention and care had been strictly reserved for distressed mothers and fresh pups. In all honestly, I never thought that rocking anyone but myself to sleep at night would ever be a viable option for me.

Folks said that the Citadel did strange things to one’s self. I never would have believe that such a notion would ever apply to me. And yet, the night after I had burned the wounds of the infamous Ace’s arms shut, I ended up reclined against the wall with him leaning back and into me, fitfully sleeping and waking every so often to growl and groan with the pain.

I didn’t have any ointment to give Ace. The only comfort I could offer him was that of my touch. I stayed awake nearly all night, stroking the dome of his bald head and soothingly rooting my fingers in the stubble of his growing beard. I tried to hold Slit in my arms, too, but he still seemed somewhat hesitant to be near me. He settled on resting his head a few inches beside my thigh, his long arms tossed over his head. In the night, while he slept, he would roll onto his side and throw his ruined left arm into my lap; when he would wake again, he’d pull the arm back and kick at me with his boot. An inner turmoil even he couldn’t deny.

We tossed all night, and I waited diligently for those doors to open back up again, wondering at all if anyone would be coming to fetch us before Slit carked it. By morning, both of them were asleep on me, and I was staring at the floor of the space, my grey bits too exhausted to find anything else to focus on.

The Watering Hole was filled with barrels upon barrels of what I assumed to be aqua cola, each of which was guarded fiercely by means of a lock and key. The lid of each metal barrel was chained and locked, and I figured that each barrel was probably opened, emptied, and filled every day, despite there being nowhere in this relatively small space to refill the barrels once rations had been given out. They just handed out aqua cola here; where they sourced it from was a mystery.

I hadn’t a clue as to why the boys had been placed here once the riots had ran their course. Perhaps it was because the guards could better control exactly who came in and out of this place; perhaps it was because they were out of options. Both seemed probable.

Morning came at the sound of the large doors creaking open, and the sound of deep, carnal gagging. The room smelled like smoke and burnt flesh, that much, I knew, and the War Boys who were stationed here seemed to be unused to at least one of those scents.

The boy called Blackout was among those who entered first, and I could tell he was looking for some attention. He strode about under the eye of his fellow mates, a bird during mating season, preening his feathers and plucking through the other competition with his eyes. His mate, invisible, but still very present- the concept of honor and grit. Those his nose wrinkled and his lips curled, he would not recoil at the scent Ace and I had made, a combination of our skills and fire. Instead, he made a show of pulling up his trousers like he hadn’t a care in the world and gazing carelessly around the room before seemingly noticing me.

He had wanted to seem brave in the eyes of the flock, but when he locked eyes with mine, I made him falter. Beneath each of my arms was a War Boy of high rank: both of them his senior, both of them Fury Road survivors, both of them asleep and with stilled wickedness under my smooth dark skin. Neither of them would have admitted to wanting my touch in front of this impressionable youth, but in the throes of sleep they relented and relished in me. Ace was tucked into my neck; Slit had his arm in my lap and my palm on his stubbly head.

I, the elder, snarled at the youth, and he cowered despite having strength I had long ago lost. I raised my chin at him. History always won out against bravery in one way or another.

“…you _burned_ him,” he said, a little more loudly than I might have liked, obviously attempting to rally those around him to his side. Dozens of eyes turned towards me in unison, burning like individual albino suns, burning into the fabric of my very being and pulling me apart by the threads.

“I _saved_ him,” I said, curling my legs inwards as they approached, unwilling to get injured when my Boys were in such great need of me. “Where did y’learn that savin’ was painless? You’re young. Y’don’t know nothin’ yet.”

“And him?” Blackout cocked his chin at Slit, who was huffing through his nose erratically as he began to wake. I immediately began smoothing my palm soothingly along the curve of his head, which didn’t comfort him much but at least kept him from throwing himself directly at the stranger that had made the mistake of wandering into his line of vision so early in the day.

“…he’s not your concern. Just because he once wore your colours don’t mean he’s your property,” I seethed, and I could tell the comment struck him hard somewhere within, somewhere where it clearly hurt. He had wanted to reclaim his fellow War Boys in a grand display of manliness and fortitude, but he had been struck down with nothing but words. He couldn’t wrap his head around the defeat. It just made him angrier.

Make a note of such things: War Boys do not appreciate new things, but they _certainly_ do not appreciate confusion.

He got the same look in his eye that he had that first day we had met, just outside these foreboding doors, and I could hear the snarl forming in his throat. I got nervous despite myself, especially when, like a pack of rabid mutts, the other boys sensed the growing tension of a potential brawl and began to close in. There were no bets exchanged, no rations being tossed about as I had seen during my time in the Blood Shed when patients would toss one-another around- there was no point. If Blackout wanted a match for blood, I would be dead in seconds.

Ace was asleep and weak. In his state of near-uselessness, I couldn’t rely on his authority to control these pups anymore. I had _no protection_. I squeezed my eyes shut and braced myself against the wall.

A noise I had never heard before echoed through the room, one that sounded like a motor but that was too organic to be human. My grip on Slit was lost in an instant, and when I managed to open my eyes again, he was gone from my side.

The maniac was screaming and gurgling behind his mouth metal, crawling rabidly on his hands and knees with surprising speed and trying to clobber at Blackout with his remaining fist. The jostling was enough to bump Ace off of my shoulder with a snort from his part, but I couldn’t worry about the burn victim I had created. I had unleashed a monster.

“ _No!_ Slit, _Slit, enough!_ ” I roared, scrambling right after him and hooking my spindly arms around his shoulders and across his chest like a cross-body bag strap and attempting in vain to pull him away. Luckily, I didn’t have to move him very far. The sight of the machine-turned-demon was enough to get Blackout and the rest of the group scrambling backwards with raucous shouting and true disarray. Nothing like a carnal shock to the senses to get one feeling alive again.

His heart was roaring in his chest, rumbling a chaotic rhythm even as he relented and allowed his weight to drop backwards into my arms. I saw myself in his cloudy, distracted eyes- if infection hadn’t already reached his mind, it was making its way there, because even though he was still maintaining his strength, he was losing his place as a resident in his own being. He was twitching and growling softly, and though I pet him and whispered as softly as I could into his ear, it was as if he could only hear my words, not the meaning behind them.

Ace was awake beside me, but he didn’t say a word: he was either too weak to conjure up shouts and threats, or he thought they weren’t necessary. He was staring knives into the younger Boys, who were all shuffling in their spots under his gaze. Some of them recognized Ace and laced their fingers together, in that War Boy prayer stance I had almost forgotten, while others simply balled up their fists and turned their eyes to the ground.

Blackout was the only one of the Boys who was still brave enough to look up at the three of us, gazing wearily into our faces and showing his youth. He wasn’t much younger than me, but his ignorance was beaming and bright. He tried to turn his eyes away—scuffing his boots, adjusting his trousers, awkwardly rubbing the back of his head—but he seemed unable to keep his eyes from Ace for too long, like an ugly little hairless moth drawn to deadly lamplight.

“You… can’t stay,” Blackout said once he realized none of his fellow Boys was going to speak for him. He gestured awkwardly to the door with the back of his hand. “People’ll be comin’ soon. Cola rations and all that.”

I turned to Ace, but he just stared back at me in return, blank, thoughtful. He knew we hadn’t a chance of moving Slit in the state he was in, especially with his mouth shut as it was. If he could speak, he could tell us, at the very least, if we were hurting him. Cutting someone off from their ability to express their own pain was torture, torture that I had learned to endure at a young age. If we were going to take him somewhere safe, I needed to free him from the mouth metal.

I looked up at Blackout, who was sour-faced but attentive. This wriggling mass of a boy-man was my only hope.

“I—I need somethin’ that grabs good,” I expressed, holding up my thumb and fingers and making a deft pinching potion. “Somethin’ tough. Anyone got somethin’ like that? Anythin’?”

No one moved for a moment, and I looked to Ace again, now getting nervous. We needed to move soon, and no one was going to help us but ourselves. Luckily, he was sharp and attentive, now. Maybe the pain had finally settled in and was acting like a razor on his senses.

He pulled back his shoulder but didn’t do anything more. His age radiated authority.

“The lady asked you a question,” he said, rumbling like a storm, and within the blink of an eye, the small crowd was bustling awkwardly, all flying hands and nervous murmurs as they dug through the pouches of their tool belts.

 _Lady_. There were many things I was, but lady was not one of them. I would have said something, but by the time I had found my bearings again, a showering of hands were being shoved at me, all clutching a variety of different tools. I was drowning in metal and worn down handles, as well as the sudden, total silence. I could hear distant voices forming outside the closed doors. We were running out of time.

I picked up a pair of plyers, with thin little pincers. They were the only tool I could recognize by name. Sometimes, when labour needed to be induced, Maude would take a long pair of plyers and prod up inside the mother to get her waters gushing. I hated doing it. A necessary evil, one of very many.

“You’re goin’ to need to hold ‘im,” Ace said, but I wasn’t really thinking. I had stopped thinking when I had grabbed the lantern to burn up his arms.

Slit was getting groggy. I knew it was going to hurt like a bitch to get them out again, so much skin was already healing over the staples, and I wasn’t going to have time to be gentle. Sweet boy. Poor sweet boy.

I laid him down on the ground again, and though his eyes were still open, I could easily guess by his dumbfounded expression that he saw absolutely nothing through them. His eyes were rolling over the crowd of younger men, who were putting tools away and slowly inching inwards, forming a tight circle around him.

Hands were falling. Falling and landing on him. Two, four, six, ten, sixteen. All holding this machine down, keeping this engine from running.

Soon, even without having to wear a coat of paint, Slit was covered in the white, to the point where he resembled some sort of spirit, maybe a glimpse of the past where he once proudly resided before someone set him on fire and made him lose it all.

He moaned at me and squirmed. Uncomfortable. He didn’t feel right. The animal part of him knew what was coming. I smiled at him, a fake smile I gave to dying mothers, and did what I had always done- I leaned over and kissed his forehead, tears in my eyes. I needed to hurt him to save him. Pain came before anything good. It needed to.

I pulled and slid the thin plyers between his lips in the metal.

For once in my life, I had seperated a man’s soul from his body. 


	24. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush is back in business.

I had never kissed a soul in my youth, but I had seen the love of two mouths on one-another numerous times. The touch of lips was multi-faceted, like the patterning of rust on an old knife. The most common ones I saw were from mother to child; sweet, tender, the most genuine of love expressed in the brush of skin on skin. Others were hard, and full of passion, much rarer in the pressure of the Wasteland. The only passion folks had was for cola and grit, usually, but the occasional press of tongue against teeth could be found, too.

A memory of my youth haunted me like a restless spirit as I ripped the slivers of metal from Slit’s swollen, pulsing lips. It was simple, but poignant; Maude and Pa, curled together on one of their better days. They kissed eagerly, squeezed and gathered handfuls of soft flesh in their greedy fingers, huffed and rolled their hips. They smiled at each-other, and even though both of their eyes were closed, they seemed to know that the other was grinning. At one point, Pa snickered in the depth of his chest and slyly sunk his teeth into Maude’s bottom lip, which made her yelp and jump. She pulled away, drawing her full mouth away from the suction of his, before nudging her head beneath his chin to bite at his scruffy chin. 

That action- the simple act of Maude pulling her mouth jokingly from his- stained the bloody sands of my mind as I watched Slit’s own pliable lips pull away harshly from the metal, which sickly mirrored what might have otherwise remained a tender reminder of better times. Small amounts of blood and sticky pus splattered like droplets of cola as his mouth bounced and his body bucked with the agony of ripping new parts out of an old engine. The boys around him gagged and swallowed their own bile as Slit’s saliva and sick poured from his lips, bubbling with the air he was desperately forcing in and out of his lungs. I worked quickly- I couldn’t afford to cut him off from oxygen for too long. The stink of his breath and his sweat rose as his mouth was further freed from the binds of fresh scar tissue and angry staples. I was inches from his face at any given time, and the heat of his previously stuffed breath and the power of his roars heated my face. I was sweating powerfully in a matter of minutes. 

A tiny pile of eleven tacks had formed by Slit’s stump hand when his lips were free and loose. The sanctity of the perfectly painted white hands holding down Slit was tainted by yellowed pus and crimson blood; the young men around me pulled away and snarled with disgust, wiping themselves down or attempting to flick off the disgusting splatters in vain. I felt drops of Slit’s blood curling down my cheeks, but I did not wipe them away. I did not have the time.

I gathered Slit’s head in the crook of my arm and brought him to rest against my shoulder, where he irritably moaned and hissed with a gaping mouth. He was heavy, but he did not squirm or fight me like he would have done a few hundred days ago. Now, he seemed happy to be held. 

The hand that was not clutching him around the shoulders rested on his chest, which was soft with dark, curly hair. The boys around me had forgotten about their duties to prepare the Watering Hole for business hours. They were now staring at me and the stormy man, seemingly in awe. The questions came eagerly with echoes of ‘chrome’ and even ‘witness’. 

“Who did that to him?” they asked

“My people,” I said.

“Why not kill him?” they asked.

“There ain’t no joy in quick death for monsters,” I said.

“Why did you save him?” they asked.

“Because, otherwise, I would’ve been dead myself.”

Slit seemed to hear the compliments quite well despite his traumatized state. His lips, now sliced into several open, bleeding sections, in rows that resembled a mock skeletal structure, spread over his teeth in a drunken smile. Blood smeared across his brown chompers, forcing his flesh opened and flare out, loose bits of skin sticking this way and that. His lips look like two sides of an off-centered gear, terrifyingly so, and yet... I smiled and stroked his burning forehead with the back of my hand. 

“...y’don’t know what’s comin’, sweetheart,” I crooned as cheerfully as I could, thinking only of the fever and tremors and possible death, but Slit only seemed to find more joy in my evident concern. Bloody saliva dribbled in fat globs from the corners of mouth, and his frustrated pants took on a new form with his upturned mouth. He reached up weakly with his free hand and touched his fingertips to those on his chest.  _Harder_ , he asked with his eyes, as he made a distracted rubbing motion across his chest. When I began to soothe him, the storm of the man fell silent, simply resorting to staring blankly out at the crowd of white limbs. He was satisfied, but I knew it would not last.

Once he was quieted enough to close his eyes, I turned my eyes to Ace, who was watching me from a few paces away. The younger men had cleared a space for him to watch us move, but his hard, wrinkled frown told me all I needed to know regarding his opinion of the interaction. I huffed softly and adjusted Slit’s head, as I would an infant. 

“...he won’t be kickin’ for much longer than this, girlie,” he rumbled, and my fragile heart was swept instantly into the stifling breeze. “I wouldn’t bother.”

I clutched Slit close. No. Not after this long. Not another death. I wouldn’t let it happen. 

“Y’don’t know that,” I snarled, unable to find my breath. I felt tears sting the back of my eyes. “How could yer tongue let somethin’ like that pass your teeth?! We got this far! I’ll bring him further!”

He held up a hand to calm me, but I pushed it aside with a firmer shake of my head. “I didn’t lose sleep for this, for y’to tell me t’leave him. Should I have left you?!”

“ _I’ve lived enough_!” The sudden anger burst and shook the room, a verbal bomb, one that caused even the murmuring of the young folk around us stop abruptly. 

He was only worried about me. I knew that. But it was the type of worry that kept a bird with a broken wing caged beyond its date of release; the worry that encouraged my father to hand me a knife before I had even come to find a more peaceful use for it; a fool’s worry. One that spurred the embers in me like a hot wind. 

“ _Well I haven’t!_ ” I roared, and tears spilled down my face. My skin boiled with their impact. “The only thing that’ll save the boy’s life is  _me_! Take m’from that, and you’ll have murdered _one of your own!_ I won’t listen! You’re not m’father, and you’re  _not Joe! I don’t wear your white!”_

I raised my hand from Slit’s chest, made a fist, and brandished my dark-skinned arm like it was a weapon of war. 

Ace did not recoil, but the young men reached for their belts in self-defence of my manic display of treachery. Blackout in particular seemed ready to do some harm; he made a point to kick out his boot, out of which a tiny blade protruded suddenly, like magic. 

I got ready for blows. I arched my back over Slit’s chest and pressed my forehead to his to avoid him receiving any harsh blows to the face. I could smell the rank of his hot breath, as well as the metallic scent of blood and putrid aroma of pus. I breathed it in and squeezed my eyes shut against the smell and the world. 

The sound of a fist pounding on the door stilled the brawl before it started. It was not impatient, but commanded authority. The knock was followed instantly by the door opening with a foreboding squeal. Whoever was behind it did not need to be welcomed in. 

The sound of electric humming and the traction were paired with the rhythmic thump of boots, and the roar of the near-silence seemed to affect everyone in the room. 

It was dark and cold when I entered the belly of the beast, and at the time, I hadn’t even realized I had been swallowed. 

A man floating in a monstrosity of metal on wheels rolled in with the aid of a tiny fist, clutching what looked to be a tiny gearstick. I couldn’t tell at a distance whether this creature had a neck or not- he looked like a newborn babe but was clearly so aware and somberly adult that it put me off to the point of tremors. An infant in the seat of a god, with a full beard and scars to prove his age. Beside him marched a man built like a tower, thin and strong. He, too, was a sight to behold, but I feared and could not concentrate. 

Why was a child staring back at me, a man who was stuck in the curse of a frail body? Why did he put his gaze on me? I felt my entire lower jaw tremble. My eyes must have been wide in their sockets, because this intelligent man-child looked upon me like I was nothing more than a girl. A girl who, I assumed, he had come to silence. 

“You’ve been the one causing the trouble,” he said, in a pitched voice that rivalled mine in shrillness. Slit moaned in my arms, and I willfully gathered his bloodied face in my arms and slowly began rocking back and forth with him.

“No,” I said, and though my voice quivered I managed to steady my gaze. He rolled closer, parting the sea of boys that were hurrying to put their weapons away, an intimidation tactic he was winning from his height off the ground. His eyes were a startling blue. I squared my shoulders.

“No,” I said again. “Did the Wife tell y’that slander?”

His nose curled as he snorted, but he willfully chose not to answer my question. The man at his side stared into me, too. He was pale, and wore no paint, but he must have been young. The sun had not carved lines into the corners of his mouth or beside his dark eyes. The standing man looked between me and the man-child, and even put his gaze on Slit. 

“Let me move her,” the standing man gruffly offered, but before I could let out a shriek of protest, the man-child waved his tiny hand and instead looked to Ace.

“You promised no difficulties,” the man-child said, and Ace bowed his head. If he had any hair to grow, I am sure he would have plowed his fingers through it, but his calloused fingers simply clung to the back of his neck and squeezed.

“She wasn’t always here,” Ace said bitterly. “It was the Wife’s idea. Said the Organic needed help. Said the Boys weren’t bein’ treated right.”

“You could have gotten  _rid_  of her,” the man-child snapped, but when the evident expression of horror melted into my features, he cleared his throat. 

“...I could never hurt a little woman,” Ace said, and the edge of his voice shattered as he turned away and sobbed. 

_Mother_.

Ace had known. About how the Wife wanted to keep them there. And let them rot. The riot- Slit was never supposed to make it out alive. Everything Ace had done had been to either please those in charge or please me. If I hadn’t insisted, I wouldn’t have gotten the pliers to pull out his metal. I wouldn’t have gotten anything if Ace didn’t see  _something_  in me. 

I reeled in disgust as the thought sank in, but I didn’t have enough time to let it settle. I was being told to stand, by  _someone_. All eyes were on me. What would I do with the body of the only man who still wanted me alive? 

I grit my teeth. I wouldn’t be fooled into leaving Slit again. Not while I still breathed. 

I propped his limp body up against the wall; I tore the fabric of my skirt until the hair between my thighs was nearly on display. I wrapped the length once around his bottom and chest, linking him to me. I huffed and spat and hissed under the buckling of my knees.

I stood. 

Slit’s weight felt mountainous over mine, and I walked crouched. But I walked. I made wild eyes at Ace, the Boys, the standing man, the man-child. 

“Where d’you want t’bury me next?” I seethed, and without hesitation, the man-child rolled his wheeling cart around and signaled for me to follow. 

With the weight of the world on my back, I lived.


	25. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush learns to rise.

I had lived in shadows my whole life- even before I was born. Mag-Dala's legacy forced me to calculate my every waking move. I hadn’t an option to come home in the evenings without having found some sort of sip of water to consume or scrap to sell, lest I wanted to taste the worn, sandy leather of my father’s belt. She hung over me like the lazy ball of fire in the sky; she disappeared occasionally, was able to fade into darkness once I had the better distractions of stars and satellites to keep my attention elsewhere, but she always came back to burn me.  

As I followed the rat of a tiny man on his electric wheel roll through the cracked doors, stalked closely by the beast that was his wall of a protector, I could feel Mag-Dala's breath heating my face as my sedate, agonizing steps dragged both Slit and I along. His prone body was both limp and stiff on my back. I had tied him to the curve of my spine so firmly that neither he nor I could move out of a half-curled position. This also meant that his remaining foot was dragging against the ground. Thankfully, I had tied him just high enough on my spine to keep his stump from getting ripped open on the stone floors. At least I had done that right.  

I could hear movement behind me as I crossed the threshold leading to the larger, public hallway. The shuffling of trousers, tools, and loud grumbling that was slowly transforming into snarling and shoving was as familiar to me as blinking. Violence had become as intrinsic to me as the beating of my struggling blood pump. I attempted to turn to glance at the ruckus over my shoulder, but I was instead met with Slit’s hot breath filling my lungs between my own parted lips and a splatter of pus and blood against my face from his mouth. I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but his fluids were leaking down my shoulder and hitting the dry ground, leaving a trail of moisture behind us.  

The yelling grew louder, and though I saw nothing but Slit’s bloodied teeth behind me, I knew who was causing the disturbance. It had to be Ace. Even after what he had done, he was still looking out for my best interest.  _Why?_  Who saves a snake from a getting cooked over a spit and then crushes it under their boot?  

I turned around and paused in an attempt to hike Slit’s mass further up my body, but as I took a step, I lost my footing on the dry ground and nearly took a tumble. Had I fallen forward, I would have surely broken my nose. As I wobbled dangerously and leaned into my fate, I managed to jut out a spindly leg. Half of me was out the door, while the other was awkwardly stuck in a half-crouch in the Watering Hole.  

Sweat poured into my eyes and made them burn and water, but even through my cracked, blurred lenses could I see the scornful faces of my prosecutors. Hundreds of people, hundreds of people who looked and smelled like I did, waited in herds to be allowed into the holy place from which I had emerged. Their lips were dry and cracked, limbs having long grown a tough second skin of dried mud to keep the sun from cooking them alive; their hair hung limp around their faces. The men huffed wildly and gnashed their teeth, and the woman were not far behind, though their eyes were ducking around the space for something to toss at me if I didn’t move quickly enough. Their eyes did not look at me, but through me. 

I was not human, not to them. I was just something in the way. A temporary obstacle between themselves and relief of thirst.  

Sprinkled in within the expanse of people were spots of creamy white, War Boys sticking out like serpents slithering through a storm. They, too, seemed unamused with my appearance. As the crowd grew restless with my lingering in the doorway, the War Boys were forced to act as peacekeepers, which they clearly weren’t used to. Babes just out of nappies, they were, babes with muscles to spare but just as naïve nonetheless. They didn’t realize that they were outnumbered, that the weak could still rip them apart like they did with Joe on that day... I had never seen so many people fight for a scrap of thigh meat. 

I felt aqua cola begin to pool and spill over the barrier of my lids. Toothless roars and the smell of spoil choked me as my core trembled harshly with the exertion of standing again. My muscles rotted with the effort it took for me to drag my meager foot forwards, twitching and begging at me to cease and rest by throbbing dangerously in time with a vein travelling down my forehead. My lungs could barely expand under the combination of my own crumpled ribs against my folded knees and Slit’s weight against my back. In fact, I could feel gravity forcing my abdomen against my knees in a twisted folding maneuver. The whirring of the child-man's mechanical chair began fading... then paused. The entirety of the crowd’s collective gaze shifted to him. 

I couldn’t see him, not when he had moved so quickly in his little seat. The squirming mass of people seemed to fall quiet in an instant when he turned to look over them. I could hear some hesitant whisperings.  _I’ve_ _got milk. I know cars, know where to get_ _guzz_ _good and cheap. I promise, I’ll be useful, give me a chance._  

Fucking shit-for-brains, the lot of them. They didn’t fucking know what they were getting in to. What the fuck did they think they were going to get through work? Reward? Good food and shelter from storms? Absolute fuckheads and cunts, that crowd. No one rose to the top like they did on the Lift, they were born there. All they had to do was keep others from pushing them off their pedestal when they dared to gaze down at those rusty ones crawling and licking their toes. 

 _Crawling_. I could crawl. I could still move. I didn’t need to stand. The weight would be bearable if I brought myself to my knees.  

My skin scraped against my skin as I dropped to the ground with relief, not even able to hold back my squealing groan of satisfaction as I gave my joints a rest. But with the release of pressure and pain on my limbs came a worrying huff and drawn out moan from over my shoulder. I had forgotten the thing that I was carrying was a man, burned and scarred and two-limbed. The jostling was surely irritating him.  

Now, I was stuck: I relaxed, and I couldn’t stand again. I had dug myself a comfortable grave. Between the growing irritation of the crowd, Slit fussing in my ear, and Ace still hollering his lungs out behind me... I couldn’t hear them swinging the doors open to their full capacity.  

The folks around me tensed harshly, snapping like cracks of whipping thunder to attention, nearly falling over one-another as their eyes focused on the barrels of precious aqua cola within. They didn’t seem to notice the puddle of blood where Slit, Ace, and I had sat overnight, or the shocking scent of burnt flesh. I couldn’t blame them. Just because I had grown to ignore my thirst for the benefit of my Boys didn’t mean I wasn’t tempted by the promise of a wet tongue. Yet... not a soul took more than a handful of shuffling steps forwards. Like machines on timers, they all twisted their heads around to look at the little child-man and his person-shadow.  

The person-shadow turned his attention to me, for a moment. He had so few facial scars- in fact, besides what looked to be a few pock-marks, his skin was completely clear of past injury. It was terrifying and ugly.  

He raised his hand as preparing to strike me from his distance. In a way, he was. Before I could even find it in my aching bones to attempt to stand myself up again, he snapped his dry fingers.  

The entire group shifted like a sand dune in the stormy wind, and I was moved with them like a pebble resting on the surface of their golden face. I screamed in terror and instinctively curled in as the crowd stumbled around me and over me. I tasted the sweat and flavours of others unwillingly- hair and dry skin brushed against my own, got behind my teeth, forcefully so. Even while I was being choked alive, I could pick up one common sound that was repeating over and over across the population of dehydrated folks causing Slit and I to be crushed alive.  

 _Ace! Ace! Ace! Ace! Ace!_  

Why were these folks chanting for an old man they had probably never even met? What did one surprisingly long-lived War Boy have to do with their thirst? Through the relatively small gaps in the never-ending crowd, I found myself staring at the shadow-man's expression. It had changed drastically from one of solemnity to that of a child giddily at play. A group of women nearly old enough to be this man’s mother had thrown themselves joyously at his feet and were kissing any exposed skin they could find. They clawed viciously and even furiously bit one-another for their lips to brush against knuckle and fingernail. Through all the human wilderness, I could still read their lips. 

 _Ace! Ace! Ace! Ace! Ace!_  

Even if someone hadn’t struck me in the ribs with their boot while the realization set in, I would have probably collapsed to my stomach regardless. All this time, I had been under the impression that I had known  _the_  Ace... but I had just known  _an_ Ace. He was just as replaceable as a tent spike in this city, risen from the sand up. All that I had built up all these hundreds of days, all the reputation I had earned... it had been taken away in an instant. Ace was no longer the Ace. The shadow-man was. 

I hadn’t realized how gravely I was screaming until someone stepped on my hand and snarled at me to shut my trap. But I couldn’t stop, no matter what drugged rag was shoved against my mouth.  

 _No._  I would not be silenced again. I needed to get up.  _I wouldn’t be trampled._  

Wheezing loudly to fill my lungs with air, I pounded the ground with my raw fists for a moment, before letting forth a bellow I’m sure even the Mother couldn’t ignore and shooting my hands up to the hands of the folks folded in tight around me. I cried, but my skin was hot with rage, and I could nearly feel myself glowing from the inside out. The man on my back was half-pinning me, but I scrambled to my knees regardless. I reached behind me, and with my hand, I grabbed Slit’s paw between my fingers and pulled that in the direction of the heavens, too. Who would dare and help the wild beggars, revolutionaries emerging from fallen barricades? Who would break for the likes of us?  

People around us snarled and recoiled with disgust at our display. No one, none of my own people, the kin of my kin, dared touch the skin of their sister. One woman with sagging breasts that had seen the birth of multiple children even dared to holler at me, sightless poison in my ears, “ _Drop the man if you want to get somewhere!”_ I retaliated by harshly whipping my hand out to rip out a portion of her patchwork skirt.  

 _This man is going nowhere,_ I said with soundless words, foaming at the mouth. 

As the crowd began to thin out, as people collected their water rations and left, my heart pounded even more harshly when I realized that none of these downtrodden folks would lend their strength to build mine. I couldn’t be upset. I knew better than to mock the weaknesses I could still find in myself. So, with one final sweep over the crowd, I stuck the rag I had stolen from the woman in my mouth, bit down  _hard,_ and slowly began to rise. 

I would always wonder, when looking back at that moment, if the Mother or whatever other gods were out there, found amusement in my struggle. I don’t think so- I was far too mad to be a joy and far too unrelenting to lend myself to the amusement of others. No, the gods probably assumed I was insane. I can’t help but say that I still chuckle at the prospect that that could possibly be true.  

I nearly collapsed on my way up from the ground. Slit had now woken and was thrashing against me and threatening to clobber the forms around me with stray punches and kicks. One particularly rough jerk sent me stumbling- I shrieked and my knees collapsed on themselves, but I did not hit the ground.  

A hand grabbed me tightly by the wrist.  

The palm was rough and tight, but I was not staring at the hand. In my half-backwards bent position, I was staring exactly into my savior’s chest.  

It was white, and a three-pronged star surrounded by a circle was carved into the left pectoral.  

“...Joe, you got uglied up  _bad_ , smeg,” the voice said, deeper than I had remembered, but still pleasantly young.  

My eyes squeezed shut, and when a wave of relief hit me, I was helped to the ground by a boy who was softer than the blue of the sky, and, who my delight, still forgot to paint a small spot beneath his chin.  

Pit didn’t cry at the sight of me, as I had expected him to do, but instead nodded firmly in the direction of the shadow-man and began to unwrap the tight length of cloth that were connecting Slit and I together from around my belly. 

“Don’t take him from me,” I begged around my rag as I removed it from between my lips, and though Pit didn’t respond, his gaze said everything. He would be safe, but I needed to go. I was awaited.  

As Pit and I switched spots so that Slit could be moved to his back in the chaos, I managed to press my hand to his cheek before the natural pull of the crowd knocked me away.  

The boy's skin was rough under his paint. I was proud to say that scars and stubble suited him well.  

I nodded with approval at him and, despite my hair loss, wrapped the rag that had dampened with my saliva around my head of remaining hair. Its tightness soothed me, and funnily enough, Pit solemnly nodded back at me. 

He knew he would be able to rise with me soon enough.


	26. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush is alone. 
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to Quentin Kenihan, who passed away this last October and who played the fantastic Corpus Colossus. You have been witnessed.

Pa would keep me awake in the night with stories of Joe and his brood. He used to terrify me with the thought that the War Boys I grew up watching from afar, clinging to Maude’s legs, were all born and bred personally of Joe himself. Though his favourite wives were kept under the safety of the glass dome, he had hundreds of boys from other women: gardeners, artisans, labourers... The boys were kept and raised up to cover themselves in paint and serve their father, why else would they all gleefully call him ‘Daddy’? The girls were toasted and eaten. 

When I began pup-catching, I knew these stories weren’t true. Most women couldn’t carry their pups to full term, and though I hadn’t a clue, I figured that most men couldn’t be any more fertile. My fears mellowed regarding Joe’s clan of boys, but two truths were spoken by my father during those chilly nights spent in the dark: the first was that the Joe did raise these boys, in one way or another, and he didn’t need to tuck them at sundown to leave his memory in their liquid minds. 

The second? That the true spawn of Joe was much more terrifying than any stories my bastard of a father could ever whisper into my ear to get me to squirm. 

I had to jog after the child-man to catch up with him, and my weak legs certainly had no patience to support the jangling of my bones. I had no clue where we were going, and I was scared. This man looked fragile, more so than I did, but I had a horrifying feeling that the power he wielded could strike me dead in seconds. Just because he was stuck sitting didn’t mean he couldn’t find a way to break my knees. 

The shadow-man was still being fawned at by various women and men alike, all of which were eagerly clinging to his forearms and thighs as if he were a god. His scarless face was being worshipped, touched and pet, and I could see the eyes of multiple War Boys on him, too. Blackout and the shadow-man were exchanging looks that made my skin crawl. I turned away rapidly; such looks were exclusive and private, and despite how much I hated both of them, it was not my place to stare. 

My skin puckered as I was marched through various empty corridors, halls that were much too silent for my liking. The whirring of the mechanical seat that the child-man rode in filled my head, the white noise of sand shifting during an ugly storm. He was purposefully taking me away from the eyes of the crowd. 

I hadn’t thought about my knife in a long while, but dragging my feet towards my death made me ache for metal. I still had teeth, at the very least, the ones that the Wife hadn’t pulled. I wouldn’t be hurt again. I couldn’t. 

I was led to a room with a solid metal door- similar to the one in the Blood Shed that had kept the Boys and I away from the freshness of air for hundreds of days- but it was cracked open just enough for the child-man to use his monstrosity of a vehicle to squeeze through the doorway. The door was propped at that specific angle with a pair of heavy stones. This was  _his_  place. 

I lingered outside as he rolled in, disappearing into the sanctity of his safe space... I had never had one of those. No one could tell me that, even in the comforting embrace that Maude sometimes spared for my sake, I was free from danger. 

I self-consciously reached for the edge of my hair wrap and tucked my baby hairs away in vain. Was I weak, or strong? I couldn’t tell. The only person that might know for sure was Ace. I clenched my teeth at the thought of him. There was no going back. He had chosen this path. One couldn’t follow their own footsteps backwards in the sand, lest they were determined to follow over or step on a snake. 

“Come in,” the child-man yipped, and I consciously softened the clenching of my jaw. My time was now. 

I stepped through the doorway. 

The man-child's room seemed positively unreal, and I doubted that I could trust my senses anymore in a place like the Citadel. The space, dug into the rock and sporting a fine window, was larger than the Wives’ sleep spot... but it was  _empty_. Besides a desk and a single chair in the middle of the room, there was nothing that signified that any being with a pulse had traipsed into this room. The room was cold and unfeeling despite the heat and the bite of stone under the soles of my feet. 

He turned to face me, and my hands instantly flew to my chest. I hadn’t been alone with a man I didn’t know in a long time. It disgusted me.

“You’re not what I imagined y’to be,” he snapped, with a surprising amount of ferocity for someone who was so frail of being. 

I swallowed hard. “...I’ve got a reputation, then?” I asked absently, feeling my hands begin to shake. 

“Don’t be  _smart_  with me, girl,” the child-man growled. “You’ve caused me a heap of trouble I wouldn’t care t’experience again.” 

“ _What_  did I do?!” I demanded, brows furrowing. “I  _took a job_. What’s the matter with that?!” 

“You think you were the first one t’get that position?” the child-man hissed, pointing a tiny finger at me past his barrelled chest. “The others  _left_. Quietly absorbed back into the workforce where they  _belonged_.  _No one_  wanted those fuckers.  _Why_  did you?”

I lost my breath and wheezed out a whimper. Someone had the gall to walk into that room, see those boys, and  _walk away_?

“...the riot was planned, wasn’t it?” 

I stared into the crystal eyes of the child-man, who suddenly sobered and huffed, glancing down and then away from me altogether. There was no pity or regret in his eyes. Just discomfort. 

Pieces fell into place with a single turn of the child-man's gaze. When Ace couldn’t bring himself to kill me and let the rest of the War Boys die in their hole... they let the riot do it for them. 

_Planned obsolescence._ Maude taught me that term when I was young. Something that was made shitty so that it could break and be replaced, all on purpose. 

The War Boys were like that. I was like that. We both had always been like that. 

“You’ll need t’leave.”

I didn’t take an instant to think. My shaking hands moved towards him, now, and for a moment my vision went black. I was shaking my head at the time, though I had no memory of it. I was shattering. Planned obsolescence was kicking in. 

“ _N-No_ , no, no—I can’t,  _please_ , I need t’stay,” I squawked, hurrying towards him and dropping to my knees. He had nowhere to look, now, and nowhere to go. 

I squeezed the arm of his chair firmly, much too terrified to touch his skin. 

“You’ve been enough of an upstart already... the most I can give you is another hundred days,” he gruffed, prodding at my face to move me away from him. His entire palm could fit on a small section of my cheek. 

“What about m’boy?!” I begged, frantically ripping off my head wrap. “I lost hair for him! He needs  _help_!” 

“He’ll go with you. He’s got no use here,” he said, cringing at the sight of me. Was I  _horrid_  to him?

“He can’t  _walk,_ y _’bastard_ ,” I snarled, pawing at the tears in my muddy eyes. “He don’t  _got_  what you got.”

I slammed a furious fist onto the side of the chair, and an equal amount of fury and terror lit up in his eyes. 

“You’re lucky I’m lettin’ you live  _at all_ ,” he barked, his pitched voice causing my ears to ache. 

My blood boiled. I went blind. 

“ _Live?_ ” I spat in horror. “Y’stick folks with veterans of a shitty war y’didn’t even experience, expectin’ ‘em t’get away as soon as possible t’give folks the idea that you’re  _tryin_ _’_  t’help. Oh, yeah, you’re tryin’  _real_  hard, y’fuckhead. Y’do it over ‘n over, drivin’ ‘em away each time, lettin’ ‘em spread the word about. How the War Boys are  _difficult_  an’  _beastly_ , that they’re  _eatin_ _’ others’ food_  and  _stealin_ _’ cola_  outta the mouths o’babies. Gettin' people riled t’their cores ‘bout  _needy folks!_ Spreadin’ rumours in hopes that  _someone’ll get rid of ‘_ _em_ _before the sickness does!_  Why couldn’t y’ _train_  the fuckers, huh?! Teach ‘em in medicine like  _I_ was taught?! No, y’couldn’t, because that would take  _a lick_ _o’human_ _decency!_ Now, there’s  _two_ of ‘em left,  _two_ War Boys. One of ‘em’s gonna die of age anyways, and the other?! Oh,  _might as well be merciful an’ let him crawl_ _t’death_ _!”_

I was panting, sweating too. The stubble on the child-man's face twitched as he contemplated my words. I had him in a corner. He knew I was right. 

“...I’m followin’ orders. Nothin’ more.” 

“ _Why?!”_

My voice coated and broke the walls of the empty room, and I heard it pang pitifully in a shriek off the metal door. 

The child-man looked at me. He was so smart. Anyone even a touch duller than him would have tried to give me an answer. 

The question had too many facets. Why  _what_? Why was I being abandoned? Why was he being so cruel? Why did no one ever want to stay with me? Why did everything I love have to die or try and kill me? 

The child-man looked at me. They always just  _looked_. 

“One hundred days,” he said, and with a jerk of his chair he pushed me off him. 

I heard his chair wheel away as I stayed on the floor, staring at the trails his wheels had left behind. 

It was over. I was over. I had gained nothing. I was going home. All I had to show for my time here was a ruined man. 

I tried to get up, used the chair to get myself to my feet. It wobbled under me.

I felt the leg of the chair snap.

My heart blared in my ears, thumping so rapidly that it nearly resembled a howling wind.

_Enough. Enough. Enough._ _Enough...!_ _Enough! ENOUGH!_

I grabbed the back of the chair and screamed loudly enough to reach the Mother. 

I threw the chair through the window. It shattered the glass. 

Fragments glistened beautifully as they hit the ground and fell through the air, going down, down, down. Perhaps the fragments of glass and wood would hit some poor pedestrian and kill them where they stood. I envied that quick release from here, that sweet deliverance. 

Ace had rejected me long ago; Pit was busy caring for another, one who needed his help much more than I; Maude could be dead, I could have just killed her. Who would save me from myself now?

The sun blinded me as I approached the window. Glass cut my bare feet. There was no use for jumping. The boy was still breathing. If Slit breathed, then I would breathe. 

The sky was a brilliant blue, the sand a warm gold. How long had it been since I had seen the sun? It felt like a lifetime. 

I knelt in the glass and pressed my forehead to the ground. I felt a sharp shard slice harshly through my eyebrow, and a trickle of blood painted the floor. I let it soak the rock below; I had no other offerings to give to the Mother. 

I prayed loudly, shouted my praises. 

Suddenly, it felt good to be small. 


	27. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush is reunited. 
> 
> Two chapter-week due to an insane amount of free time and inspiration. Enjoy.

The day I earned my scars was one that began like any other, with a stark difference that separated it from any other morning in recent memory: it was  _freezing_. My little arms were wrapped tightly around my ribs, knees tucked tight, and I recall whimpering softly. Maude, ever the sensitive type, always seemed to know when something dark was afoot. She took a moment from her morning routine to climb into the sandy spot where we slept to gather me in her lap. I was a bony thing, still am, and Maude didn’t enjoy holding me as I grew.  _Sharp as a dog’s tooth, girlie,_ she often groaned before shoving me away. But that morning... I was rocked and pet and called lovely, lovely, lovely. I was too young and groggy to notice the strange attachment Maude was presenting, and I didn’t question it at the time. Instead, I buried my face by her breasts and tried to go back to sleep while listening to the pumping of her blood in her chest. I was comfortable. 

I drowsed for a few moments, but soon, Pa had grabbed me by the arm and shaken me awake. Maude clung harshly to me for a moment, pressed her tender lips to my scalp, and gave me over to my father. It was only then that I opened my eyes.  

Pa carried me past the towers with green hair and into the sandy wastes, and for a moment, I wondered if we were going to visit a wreck. Pa always seemed to know if a car or cycle had been crushed in war or hit by lightning before all others, and he encouraged me to come along if Maude didn’t have work for me. Smaller hands always made quicker work of twisted-up heaps of metal. I raised my voice to ask him where we were going. I got no answer. 

I was sat down. I was told to wait. I shivered in the cold.  

The cold didn’t last.  

I was grabbed by the chin, mouth forced open. The knife touched me before the knife did.  

I must have screamed. I must have. But I don’t remember. 

I woke up again in Maude’s arms, but I couldn’t open my eyes. I tried to scream, but it hurt too badly. I moaned instead, cried. My tears made my face burn.  

I thought I was crying fire.   

I don’t remember who heard or came to fetch me once nightfall came, in the child-man's little room; I must have been curled on the ground for hours. Blood had clotted my vision severely, leaving me half-blind in one eye. Despite how my eyes uncontrollably watered, I couldn’t seem to remove the dried blood from behind my lid. I blinked harshly through the motions of my body being moved. I was hollered at to rise, prodded with a boot to assure I was still alive, picked up, and forcefully marched away from the splinters of glass.  

I was being carried everywhere, it seemed. If I closed my eyes for long enough, I could imagine myself walking. I could feel the pressure on my bare feet and the texture of sand under my toenails. How long had I been doing this for? Thinking I was moving when I was getting moved... or simply going nowhere at all? 

I was thrown to the floor, and I smashed my skull against the harsh ground. Luckily, I fell on my hairier side, and my brains didn’t get too rattled. I opened my good eye. 

A figure loomed over me, back hunched, shoulders slumped, hands on knees; the boots made me think it might have been Ace, and I nearly vomited my blood pump out onto the stone. The state of the laces comforted me. They were new. Ace hadn’t had the luxury of new laces on his boots in a long while.  

Sweet brown eyes met mine when the figure dropped to his knees, and I nearly sobbed when he came into view. Tender Pit. 

I was not used to seeing him after so long. He had grown, shot up in height and lost his baby fat. He had even begun to grow whiskers, which I reached out to touch. His smile wasn’t as grand and open as it used to be, but he still flashed his pretty teeth at me. Lovely boy. 

“I’ve been lookin’  _all over_  for you,” he said, reaching out in turn to touch the cut in my eyebrow.  

When I hissed harshly at the touch, he lost his grin. All he could find in himself to do was give my naked skull a gentle knock with his knuckles. Was he asking to be let in? The contact made me wince, and reminded me of a time when I could suffer much worse at the hand of a much less gentle soul. 

“...where’s the bloodied one?” I rasped, and somehow, Pit’s expression even further sobered.  

He grumbled something below his breath, unintelligible and foreign, and stood up slowly, not out of discomfort but out of annoyance.  

“Piece of shit’s been hollerin’ for you for a while. Only reason we found out where you were was ‘cause no one could get him t _’shut_ _his trap_ ,” Pit moaned, taking me gingerly beneath my crooked elbows and dragging me to my feet. “He  _pissed_  on a fucker. Emptied his entire tank on a man t’ _spite_ _him_! And he  _laughed_!” 

I smiled mildly. 

“Ah,” I said. “He’s in good spirits.”  

I stumbled clumsily back into Pit’s chest when he lifted my weight, easily so. I slumped backwards and nearly fell over, clearly rattled by the sheer force of the toss, but he didn’t fuss. He wrapped his arm around my waist and slowly began waddle-walking me back down the hall. I appreciated that he didn’t put me on his hip like I was a mere pup.  

As we tread through the darkness and back into more familiar halls, I could hear Pit subtly snuffling at the top of my head. That youthful curiosity and lack of tact hadn’t evaded him. He not-so-subtly gagged at my stench, but tried to be suave about it. He pulled away, concentrated on walking me a few more steps, then spoke up. 

“Your friend, uh... he needs a  _soak_ ,” he drawled, his fingers on my belly tapping away absently at the stretched skin. “If I get some cola,  _you_  could prob’ly...” 

“I know I reek worse than Wretched roadkill at noontime. Y’could bare t’be more  _sensitive_... Y’know what Ace called me? A  _lady,_ the  _Ace_  called me that.” 

I adored feeling Pit pause, squirm, and soften his grip around me. What a delightful creature. 

“Naw, naw, I know! I know you’re a lady! Cripes, I just meant...  _Damn_ , did y’really meet the Ace?” 

“Pretty boy, I met both of ‘em.” 

Our rather simple walk was hallucinogenic in quality; shadows warped and waved at the corners of my vision, and I felt as if I was walking entire deserts in just a few steps. We came to a set of stairs at one point or another, that much I knew; I tried to get up and onto the harsh first step, but the wobbling of my legs must have worried Pit. He picked me up, and even though I initially tried to fight him, screaming and wiggling, memories blended into reality... and I thought of Maude.  

She had held me for a good three-dozen days after I had been sliced. She had mashed up food, even gotten me a bottle of milk on my first terrible night with my swollen face. I couldn’t even suck, let alone drink. Maude had to give me the milk drop by drop. Pa even had it in him to scrounge together enough scrap to get me a length of frayed ribbon. He braided the hank of hair for me.  

My feet were on the ground again, but the texture of the ground was different, not like anything I had ever known before. The floor was stone, of course, but just above it, between my soles and the unforgiving rock, was something  _new,_ wet but dry and also loose. I looked down: brown, loose. Sand? Perhaps. Nearly felt like mud.  

I heard Slit before I saw him.  

Low moaning, pitched on a repetitive loop, and then rabid wailing. There was another set of stairs at the end of the hall, and four rooms on either side of the tiny hallway. There was a draft, but I was warm.  

I threw down the hands caressing my ribs and ran.  

The door to Slit’s new prison wasn’t a door at all, but a drape hanging from a bar. I yanked it open in my frantic state, but what I saw was not a collection of bitter War Boys. Though, I could have guessed as much from the noise. Besides Slit’s screaming... there was nearly  _nothing_. 

Yes, I pulled back the drape, and I did not see War Boys. I saw people. 

Two women and a lone man sat poised around a wriggling hill of blankets and rags, clearly exhausted from holding the noisy, hissing snake of a man down. They all were richly dark-skinned, the older woman so much so that only the whites of her eyes stuck out at me when she turned to stare my way. She must have been in the sun for years... all of them must have been.  

The young man had a babe in his lap, one that didn’t notice me at all but that I noticed well. The swollen eye was a tell-tale sign. Her facial tumour looked like it had grown with her.  

“ _Mary?”_ I breathed.  

The older woman jumped and snarled at the sound of the little one’s name.  

“You ain’t takin’ her away, too, heathen  _bitch_!” she yowled.  

“Silks! That’s  _enough_!” the younger woman barked, shoving roughly at Silks’ shoulder before turning to me and waving me inside. “Come along, girl, come along. Speak t’this beastie o’yours before he bites off his own tongue!”  

I didn’t move until I felt Pit at my back. He gave my shoulder a pat, which coaxed me into striding slowly towards Slit. 

He was unwell, but there was something lovely and new in his eyes. In the few hours that I had been separated from him, he seemed to have regained a touch of clarity. Oh, but he was still  _so disgusting_. His entire face was wrapped sloppily in bandages, his mouth swollen and crusted with dry blood and pus, his blue, blinking eyes and rasping breath being the only thing that alerted me to the fact that he wasn’t yet dead.  

He focused on me, puffed and groaned, but managed a gut-tossing grin. His teeth were miscoloured; they looked stained with blood. His skin was oily, along with his hair, and his beard was a mess of matted tufts. He reeked of rotting flesh, possibly worse than I did ( _oh_ , his breath could make the Mother herself chunder)… but he smiled nonetheless. 

“...ugly rat bastard, were y’givin’ folks trouble while I was gone?” I crooned, and he greedily reached up with his remaining hand to touch my head. 

I leaned down to let his fingers brush the exposed skin, my braid curling against the floor. He was positively delighted in the change. Familiarity made his eyes double-shine.  

“... _half-chrome_ ,” he declared, and I couldn’t help but snicker at him. Opinionated little brat. 

“Chromer than  _you_ , War Toy,” I said, and his hand weakly shoved at my skull.  

The folks around me seemed to deflate at the sight of our playful banter, all leaning back on their hands to take a breath. 

“You tellin’ me all we needed t’do t’get him t’listen was  _insult_  the fucker?!” the lone man exclaimed with despair, though his eyes were grateful. They were a brilliant, beady black, like crow’s eyes.  

“He’s simple that way,” I agreed, and gave Slit’s beard a scratch. Of course, he still snarled and spat and glared daggers at the others, but he seemed to tolerate my presence.  

The older woman, Silks, shook her head dismissively, glared at Pit as if he had brought a virus into the tiny space (the poor boy could only shrug and blush), and turned her eyes to me. 

“Some water’ll do you well. The rabid one, too. You both smell like hot shit on asphalt.” 

I flushed, tried to think of something clever to say, but before long, I was being grabbed harshly by the arm and yanked away from Slit. The old woman was busily pressing a length of cloth to the mouth of a calabash of cola, glancing between me, Pit, Slit. She seemed to have no concept of manners or social cues, maybe she was too old for that, but I suddenly felt as if I was being pup-sat again. My arm was yanked out, and like thunder over the plains, the rag began to violently scrub the surface of my skin.  

“Ow! What the— _no_! You’re  _peelin_ _’_  me!” I roared, furiously trying to pull away from Silks’ grip. Everyone, including her, shushed me violently. There had been enough noise for one day.  

“Better peeled than eaten straight out’a the earth, you disgusting radish-child. You’ll be  _clean_  in my house!”  

“Fuck you!” 

“Nah, fuck  _you_!” 

Our conversation ended there. I glanced at Slit. He was laughing at me, being babied by a stranger- that is, until Mary yanked a piece of his dark hair to quiet him. Someone had trained that girl well.  

Pit ruffled my hair while I was distracted, and despite my love for him, I nearly tore a finger off. 

I didn’t have the heart to ask what a radish was. 


	28. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush is allowed to stay.

Silks forced me to wash every damn day I was with her. 

I had often neglected to do so before I had joined Silks' little crew, being as focused as I was on the personal hygiene of my own squadron of Boys, but now that most were gone, Silks had no reason to allow me to keep neglecting myself. 

She would pull me from sleep in the wee hours of the morning when she would wake, restless and with nothing to do, would stick me between her old legs, and would start dousing me with lukewarm cola. She often made commentary while she did it, too- there's a reason you’ve got nothing but half a head of hair, or imagine how pretty you’d be with a crustless mug! The latter statement always got me sour and uncomfortable, and after whacking her in the calf a right couple of times with my dry palm, she refrained from scolding me, if only a touch. 

I don’t believe I had ever been cleaner in the entire span of my short life. It confused me. Why would someone who had lived as long as Silks had, someone who had seen the nastiness of the Wastes, had countless wrinkles to show her history... Why would she share cola with me? 

I rarely had time to question anything, at least before the others. I had hours alone with Slit during the long days, in that storeroom, surrounded by rakes and shovels and pails, gloves and wide-brimmed hats- the others, even old Silks, would take some of these things, and disappear up a set of stairs at the end of the hall. There, I was told, they would cross a long outdoor bridge to another one of the towers. 

In the evenings, they, along with dozens of other folks who lived in the rooms besides our own, brought back green paper things like I had seen outside of the room with the round door in full, heavy buckets. I never got to eat anything they brought back. They washed the greens, and then the man- Gazette- would stuff them all into a large canvas bag and bring them somewhere to be counted. After a long five-day cycle, they would have green things to munch. I had never accepted their offerings of food, I had already taken too much. I was happy in listening to the pleasant sound the green paper made between teeth. Crunch, crunch, crunch... 

Slit got my portion of green paper instead. I cut the veiny sheets up into small pieces, rolled them up like blankets, and placed them at the back of his mouth, between his molars. The green paper was soft enough for him to rip up without moving his injured face too badly, but the crack and snap of the texture delighted him and gave him something to focus on besides his poor lips. 

He was losing weight, muscle too, and he seemed to notice it just as swiftly as I did. He squirmed in his spot and had taken to sitting up in his seat all day to avoid getting completely atrophied. Billy, Gazette’s lady, kept insisting that she would find something more sustainable to feed Slit outside of their meager rations. Though, the groaning glare and roll of her eyes she’d give ever time Slit fussed or fought them for space and privacy told me all I needed to know. Her generosity would run out eventually. 

Mary seemed to be the only one who delighted in Slit’s condition. As she was too young to work and the rest of her clan always seemed distracted with their own trappings, bothering Slit had brought her a strange joy that I couldn’t quite quantify. She dug her wee wrigglers in his beard, tugged on hair, yanked on bandages and crawled all over his lap. 

Every day was the same. Time crawled by; I etched the number of passing days into the stone on the ground by Slit’s bedside after my bath with the point of a pair of scissors I would use to snip Slit’s bandages. Silks watched me constantly. 

“...quit that, you’ll dull ‘em,” Silks whisper-shouted at me. The old one certainly couldn’t see me scratching at the floor in the near dark, but I didn’t doubt she could hear it. 

“Can’t get much duller than they already are,” I said, glancing over my shoulder and the pile of bodies at Silks. 

She was fussing with her hair, the skin of her arms sagging in the dim light, flapping like wings. Wherever she had come from, it had made her vain. She prettied herself up only to get all dirtied up again by the end of the day. 

She must have seen the gleam of the scissor blades or the shine of my eyes, because she looked at me and stared for a spell as she pulled her black-grey hair against her scalp. She was beginning to lose it in patches. 

“...you’re an awful handsome thing, ain’t ya?” she drawled, and my throat tightened despite myself. “Y’could be plenty useful, somewhere outta here. Ol’ Wives got this place locked up tight from call girls. Out towards Gastown, though... Mmm. Someone’d pay a pretty penny for’ya.” 

I closed the scissors and released a shaky sigh. I felt cold, all of a sudden. I covered the bald side of my head with my open palm. 

I heard Silks huff and waddle over, if only to lean down and gaze down at me, coming within several inches of my face. Her bright white eyes were terrifying, slowly beginning to glaze over with cloudy splotches. All those days in the sun had ruined her. 

She smiled and took me firmly by the chin, chuckling. She still had most of her teeth, save her two fronties, but her canines were sharp and present. 

“I could bring you somewhere where those scars don’t matter.” Silks’ half-blind eyes gleamed. 

My hand was violently shoving at her wrist before I could even think to squirm and shake. The old woman delighted in my reaction: she snickered and cooed like I was a flailing pup avoiding a changing before gently releasing me. Loony bitch. 

“...they don’t matter here,” I huffed, regaining a touch of confidence as I rubbed my sore face. 

Silks chuckled and took a seat beside me; it was rare to see her smile, so I attempted not to flinch when she cupped her hand around the back of my head and stroked me there. 

“Not when yer layin’ next to a boy made up of nothin’ but scars,” she corrected, her face souring as she stretched a leg out to prod Slit in the ribs with the toe of her boot. 

Slit did nothing but puff out a groan and smack at the shoe. It was still too early for him to care much about anything. 

“I could take y’some place where folks’ll choose not to notice those ugly bits. No thought, or comparison. Just yer prettiness,” she said. 

“Prettiness gets folks in trouble,” I said with a shake of my head. “Got me in trouble.” 

Silks sighed and stroked my hair, in a way Maude might have once done. That made me recoil and glare at her. 

“Why?” I demanded, and Silks raised her wrinkled palms in my direction with a shake of her head. 

“I can’t tell you why men are usually absolute shitheads. Well. Most folks are, nowadays,” she said. 

I rolled my eyes and scoffed when she began cackling at her own little joke. Mother almighty, I could sew her lips up just as I had done with Slit’s. It might make her shrieking laughter die for at least a few moments. 

“I mean the room,” I said over the noise; I was instantly hushed by Gazette, who I scoffed at as she curled and cuddled up around Billy, who was snoring just as loudly as Silks’ cackling. His selective hearing would be the end of me. He was a cunt in a half in the mornings. 

Silks wiped some tears from her eyes with a roughened knuckle and waved me on to continue with her spare hand between her trembling, dying laughter. 

“The room,” I said, voice dropping to a whisper. “This room... What did Pit do? Why’re y’lettin’ us stay? Don’t make sense. I’m-- we, Slit and I—we're strangers.” 

Silks’ smile fell a touch, and she sat up slightly, her blinding gaze wandering off to the space between Slit and Gazette. There, tiny Mary was asleep, limbs all akimbo beneath her blanket and a slobbering thumb stuck in her mouth. Her free hand was clinging to the back of Gazette’s shirt, and I could hear the subtle movement of her tongue against her finger. Poor pup hadn’t been weaned well enough, it seemed, or she at least didn’t appreciate the separation. 

“...she’s mine, you know,” Silks said, cocking her chin at Mary. “Got her blood in me, mine in her. Doesn’t look it, but it’s true. My daughter’s daughter.” 

I tried to peer at Mary in the pale morning light, but I didn’t need to. I knew how different she looked from memory, facial mass aside. 

“I was meant to fetch her, that day. That day when you brought her up. Heard through the grapevine that she was bein’ sent up.” 

Silks cracked her neck and rubbed her shoulder ashamedly. Her memory must have escaped her, there would be no other reason for her not to fetch the blood of her blood. Age was like a toothache- it only got more noticeable over time. Silks didn’t seem the type to accept that. She had probably been stifling the pain for years. 

“Ah... but shit happens, she got passed along first. But after the riot... well, in the chaos, I was able to snatch her back up again.” 

Her eyes shifted to Slit, and she shrugged at him, and then at me. 

“Pit... well. Pit made have started this, but he had the balls to intervene and help us when we sought him out. That boy kept my girl from getting tossed in a dog-fighting ring against other pups like her.” 

Silks’ ferocity crossed her eyes for the briefest of moments, and her fists seized up in her lap. She looked at me. 

“They fed the dead ones to the live ones. When Pit found her... they were thinking about cookin’ her on the spot. Other pups we hungry and, well... tumors have got a nice chew to ‘em.” 

Mother. 

My blood ran cold and my breath grew dry. I couldn’t help but heave slightly and cover my mouth. 

Silks reached out and pat the base of my neck reassuringly, tutting every so often. 

“...when Pit asked for a pair of friends to stay, we couldn’t say no,” Silks said, helping me sit back up with a hand beneath my elbow. “That boy got beaten half to death for my Mary.” 

“He didn’t tell m’so much,” I said, aching to hold poor Pit. Whatever he had seen was warranting of some fresh facial hair and a few more inches. Sweet and naïve as he was, that would shock him into manhood right quick. 

“He’s a lovely thing. You’ll keep that boy around if you’ve got any grey matter between your ears.” 

Silks and I both seemed to turn to face Slit at that same moment, and Silks pursed her lips and drew her eyes across his ugly face. 

“...he may be a bit young, but really, girl? Pit surely can’t be that awful t’look at. This piece of meat over Pit?” 

I snorted and reached out to take Slit’s hand. I had a sinking feeling that he could hear him, and my heart couldn’t help but go out to my ugly War Toy. 

“He isn’t so horrid,” I said, but Silks didn’t seem convinced. She simply got to her achy feet and wiped her hands on her thighs. 

“A piece of advice?” she said, cocking her head at Slit. “Don’t let your happiness rely on no one else but you. A smile won’t make a life.” 

My brows furrowed at that as I stared into Slit’s sleeping face. The man I had been taking care of for months was not the man that fought in the Road War. I might have created a sleeping beast, and I would have no idea how I would sneak out of his den with my life once he woke up. 

I placed his hand down and got up to follow Silks. There was surely other work to be done.


	29. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush and Billy have a chat.

I was glad to be made to feel useful again, around Silks’ crew. 

There was always a lot of work, but it was work I had never experienced. I spent my days with Slit, and after a while, Billy and Gazette allowed me to participate in their little sorting ritual when they had the green paper bundles. 

The bundles weren’t always green- sometimes, they weren’t bundles at all. They came in little brown packages with white spikes growing out of them, or long, sunset-orange cones with long tufts of hair on the top. As Slit’s lips drained of his infection and healed gradually over the course of twenty-two days, he got to eat the green things from the gardens I was never permitted to visit. 

Every time Gazette and Billy permitted some foodstuffs, it was pure excitement. Day twenty-four offered a surprise, little red, slap-coloured things that tasted like all the good parts of milk without all the fattiness. I was given three tiny specimens and ate all of them selfishly. 

Billy smiled at me, showing me her missing front tooth, smothered in rosy juices.

“You like that, girl?” she asked, turning her eyes back to her work, sorting through the soft things.

She kept plucking out the things from the bowl in her lap, setting aside the rotting or tiny ones in a separate pile on the floor, which the whole group ate from with much vigor. Seated in a circle, wearing nothing but holed-up socks, a lamp kept the darkness away instead of a fire burning Before-Time trash. There was a pleasant-sour smell in the air, body odour and something else, and everyone was tired but pleased in the knowledge that all would be done soon. Even Slit, in his reluctance to interact with everyone but me, sat up and scooted into the circle to delight in the juicy blood things. He cradled his stump close to his belly in a way the mirrored Silks clutched a sleepy Mary to her chest, who was liking her plush little lips in her sleep, tasting sweetness that wasn’t there. 

I nodded enthusiastically at Billy’s not-so-real question, and Gazette looked up grinned, too. I liked Gazette. His warm eyes made me feel chrome when they looked at me. 

“Mmm.  _Real_ good... bet they’d be better if  _I_  got t’ help pick ‘em,” I said, prodding Gazette in the knee. “I’ve got clever fingers!”

Gazette snorted and shoved my fingers away, coaxing a dramatic groan out of me. 

“Green Guards wouldn’t allow somethin’ like you int’the gardens, not without proper marks,” he said, rolling up his sleeve.

There, etched into the skin of his forearm, was a complicated pattern of lines reaching up towards his elbow from a narrow rectangular shape. I couldn’t help but reach over and touch that pattern, feeling the raised ridges. 

“...this isn’t mechanical,” I noted, but before Gazette could clarify the symbol, Slit snorted from behind me. 

“It’s  _mediocre,_  that’s what it is,” Slit scoffed. “ _Green_  matter. Nothing reliable. It all rots and dies.” 

“Mediocre?” Gazette echoed, firmly snapping his jaw shut. “ _Mediocre_ is what feeds your ass, you limp switchblade. Have some manners.”

“Don’t make me think up some new, _fun_  way to choke you, rothead,” Slit growled, and I saw his remaining hand twitch into a fist in its place supporting him against the floor. 

“I could bury you and  _no one would know_. Try me,  _try me_!” Gazette barked, and before a hand could even lurch out in a swat, Silks loudly shushed the pair of them.

“The  _baby_  is  _sleeping_ ,” Silks seethed. “Eat, work, or  _shut_ _yer_ _fuckin’ mouths_.”

I didn’t have to say a thing to add to Silks’ scolding; I simply clapped a hand over Slit’s bicep and shoved him back and away from Gazette.

Slit’s temporary lapse of comprehension due to disease, in hindsight, was easier to manage than him conscious and active. He was being a terror, a demon who screamed and bit anyone who didn’t worship him. 

Billy was the one to break the silence. She noticed my fury, reached out across Gazette’s lap and lovingly rubbed my arm. 

“...how’s about I bring you back somethin’ with more bite than berries? Some meat?” she asked. “You look as if you’re wasting away, lately.”

Whether he noticed it or not with his single good eye and dulled senses, I, at least, could feel all eyes turn to the man seated at my left. No one cared about being obvious anymore. 

“No secret why,” Gazette murmured, and that earned him his own  _thwack_  in the arm on Billy’s part. 

Nothing more was spoken. After a few more swift minutes of final sorting, Gazette and Billy packed their little crimson berries up into containers, each taking one, before insisting they would be back soon. That left me, Slit, and Silks alone, staring at one-another.

Every night ended like this- a fight, a disagreement, some silence, sleep. I was getting tired of being questioned. I had enough to worry about as is. I only had so many days until I had to go...  _somewhere_.

“Why d’you have t’act like that?” I snapped. 

Slit barely took notice of me speaking at first. It wasn’t until I reached out and yanked firmly on a strand of his hair that he snarled and pulled away from me. 

“Don’t ignore me!  _Why_  do y’antagonize everyone?!” 

“So what if I do?!” Slit demanded. “That  _bastard_  knows he can get away with yellin’ at me, but me at him?!  _That’s_  what makes you sour?!” 

“ _That bastard_  is lettin’ us stay as guests in his home! I would think t’be kinder! What is the  _matter_ with you?! What can’t y’see?!” 

“ _This is temporary!”_ he exploded, his scarred lips twisting as he got within inches of my face. 

We breathed heavily into each-other's faces, so close that I could count every single pock mark in his lips. 

“This isn’t going to end in anything good. I am  _useless_.  _I can’t stand_. I am going to end up rotting somewhere, probably used to make green fodder grow in those gardens you so badly want to see. I look like a fucking feral,  _worse than you!_  Who’s going to want me after this?! How will I work?! At least you’ve got hands! Feet!”

He prodded me harshly in the chest, making my ribs quiver and my muscles ache. That got Silks involved; she growled and yanked on Slit’s shoulder, warning him firmly to leave me be, but he simply jerked himself away, which yanked Mary right from her slumber. Baby cries filled the air.

“They’re letting us stay, until  _what_?” Slit asked. “I have nowhere to go! I have  _nothing!_   _I am nothing!”_

His hand snatched my wrist hard and squeezed. 

“ _And you are, too.”_

_No. No, no, no, no--_

Another hand, two, three, four. 

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay! Everything’s okay!” 

I was convinced Silks was talking to Mary, because everything was loud and chaotic and there was too much noise around me to make much sense of anything. But everything was cold, and my knees were clacking together. Night must have fallen. 

I was being smothered against a chest, and I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt the moisture of wet fabric under my face. An arm was clasped around my waist, and a hand was folded tightly across the back of my head.

Billy. It was Billy. Gazette was screaming in time with Silks, but Billy was whispering in my ear and telling me that it was done.  _It?_  What was  _it_?

“It’s alright, darling. No more tears... hey, how’s about some meat? You want mutt?”

I don’t recall nodding, but I was led outside anyways and was sat on my bottom in the hallway. I still heard screaming, but instead of letting me hear, Billy just pressed my head against her chest and clapped her hand over my exposed ear, muffling the noise. 

Fresh roasted  _something_  was shoved in my mouth. Billy called it mutt, but I knew there weren’t mutts around the Citadel, around  _anywhere_ anymore. Whatever. It tasted nice. 

I must have spent hours in the hall with Billy, eating, crying, being held. She placed me between her knees and even kissed the crown of my head.

She cooed over the state of my wrist, too. It was turning all kinds of complicated colours and swelling up horribly.  _Fuck_.

“You don’t have t’take care o’him, don’t you know that?” 

I looked up. Billy was tenderly rubbing my wrist, but her eyes were hard. The world was quiet around us. A lantern had appeared next to us; Billy looked exhausted. 

I sat up, moved away a touch. Billy looked pretty in lamplight. I could see why Gazette was so fond of her. 

“Where else would he go? Who else would?” I asked, and Billy clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes.

“Does it matter? You have more important things t’worry about. Where will you go, when your hundred days are up?”

My brows furrowed.

“Who told y’about...?”

“Pit,” she said. “Bless him, but that boy couldn’t keep his mouth shut t’save his life. Besides, we needed t’know. Your stay... it could have never lasted forever.”

I grimaced and nodded, instinctively reaching for my remaining hair and pulling it from my face.

“I never thanked y’for letting m’hang around. Slit, neither.”

Billy hummed and touched a strand of her own dark hair, which was oily with sweat. Silks would surely rectify that by morning. 

I had never noticed that Billy’s skin was freckled. I reached out and touched the splattered, light-brown stars on her collarbone. Her frown turned warm and liquid. 

“...aw, you’re not so bad, girl,” she said, poking the scar above my upper lip. “Your friend, though? He needs correcting.”

I shrugged and looked towards the stairs that lead to the gardens. How much longer could I live? Was he the only reason I was living at all?

How much could I forgive?

“Do y’know anyone that could fix Slit a fake foot?” I asked, and Billy raised her eyebrows in shock.

“You’re joking,” she gawked. “The man nearly snapped your arm off, and you want t’reward him?! You’re manic!”

“I’m practical,” I said. “He wants to leave, he  _needs_ to go. I’m just giving him the chance t’do something with himself.” 

“The boy shouldn’t have lived, let alone given the chance t’walk. You’re too good to him, he’ll take advantage o’that.”

I shrugged. It wouldn’t have been the first time. And now, I had people who wouldn’t let anything happen to me if shit went sideways. I knew I would be alright. 

“...well?” I asked again. “Do y’know anyone?”

“Pit could probably build it right proper for us, but we don’t have parts to give him. Gazette could surely trade for some, but...”

“ _No_. I’ve asked enough from you. I can work.” 

Something sour invaded Billy’s eyes, and she turned her face away and got to her feet, picking up the lantern as she went. She was thinking, but she didn’t like where her mind was wandering. 

“...we’ll talk in the morning. C’mon now, girl. To bed with us.”

Entering the room again after so long was different and strange. The mood was more peaceful, but something bitter hung in the air like a limp flag, windless and soundless. I nearly went over to my usual side of the room, but for some reason, Billy took me by the hand and shook her head at me. She cocked her head elsewhere, where Gazette was sleeping with Mary at his side. 

Billy laid down first, but didn’t let go of my hand until I got down there, too. Gazette roused slightly when Billy nuzzled her nose into his cheek and gave him a kiss. My chest ached... that looked  _nice_. 

Billy must have caught me staring, because she smiled at me, wished me goodnight, kissed my cheek, and blew out the lantern. I clung to her shirt just like Mary did with Gazette’s.

That night, I dreamed about Billy’s freckles. She reminded me of the sky. 


	30. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rush argues.

I don’t remember the morning coming or waking up to meet a new dawn. What I do remember is Mary getting something to eat and being particularly adamant about sitting by me and tending to me. She kept investigating my blackened hand and wrist, and while she clumsily fought food past her lips, she laid her heavy head on my chest and huffed out mumbled questions. I never recalled her being so chatty. 

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes, baby, it hurt.”

“Not a baby.”

“Sorry. Yes, Mary.”

“Do you need a bandage?”

“No, Mary. It’s not twisted. It just needs t’rest up.”

“But bandage  _helps_.”

“...d’ _you_  think I need a bandage?”

“...yes.”

And so, I got a bandage. It was loose and dangly, was sure to fall off eventually, but I let her do whatever it took to comfort her. As her clumsy, fat little fingers poked and prodded at my swollen arm, I watched Slit out of the corner of my eye.

He hadn’t touched his food, not even moved from his place on his side, facing the wall. Something was bothering him. He was in one of his moods again.

Silks scooped Mary away while my eyes were still trained on Slit. She was looking at him like he was a pile of something rotten she had just stepped in. Rather, he was more like a pile of something rotten that had stepped into  _her_  way. The guilt sank in quickly.

“...I’ve asked for too much,” I said, and Silks looked at me emptily. 

“Yes,” she said, “You have. Not your fault. But you have.”

Billy, who seemed to be gearing up in trousers and work boots, looked up with a scowl at Silks and wrinkled her face at her.

“Silks! Not now. She’s had a rough night,” Billy snapped. 

“We’ve  _all_  had a rough night! One we haven’t had in months! And all because she brought that  _thing_  here with her...” 

We all looked at Slit. 

Not a breath. 

Silks just growled, hoisted Mary a little closer to her, and exited the space, joining the mass of loudly grumbling voices in the hall and the equally disruptive stomping of boots.

Billy stared after her, while Gazette groaned into a squat at my side. He had a bucket of water in his hand, a rag wrapped across the handle. Work was to be done. Work I had no choice but to do.

“...she didn’t mean anything by it. She didn’t sleep much,” Gazette assured me. 

A comforting hand warmly cupped the back of my head, and I melted into it. I was tired too. His breath was ghosting against my cheek. He wanted me to look at him. He wanted to know what would happen to me once he was gone. 

Gazette touched me a lot, and so did Billy. The War Boy hadn’t touched me once outside of slaps and punches, save that one time, where he gently touched the side of my head and called me half-chrome. It had felt so good. I wanted that time back. 

“...you two should go to work,” I said without a thought, and Gazette’s fingers left my hair. 

“You’ll be alright?” Billy asked, but it was just a question of courtesy. There was something metallic in her voice. 

“I’ve lived this long,” I said. 

“We’ll discuss the foot when I get back,” Billy said, and her eyes lowered to the bucket by my side. “In the meantime, could you...”

“Don’t worry about it.”

And just like that, they were gone. 

I stared at the still, murky cola in the bucket. My reflection was warped, and I looked quite old. 

“I’m sorry.”

For a moment there, I thought I had spoken out loud to myself. But I knew it wasn’t possible. I hadn’t gone that crazy, not yet, not when things were getting better. Not when I had just stopped seeing shadows outside of sleep. 

It was the boy. 

He had rolled onto his back and was looking at me with a type of brokenness that made you notice every grain of sand between your fingers and every itching insect bite near your toes. The type of brokenness that just made you  _miserable_. 

“ _Sorry_?” I breathed. My voice broke ugly. 

My grains of sand on my skin turned to glass; my bites scabbed and fell off. 

I got to my feet within seconds, rising like hot hair, and I threw a rag at his foot and stump. I held my hand up before he could think to complain about the moisture licking at his bandages. 

“I haven’t the patience for y’ and whatever you’re plannin’ t’say no more,” I snarled. “So you’ll listen. And you’ll shut yer trap ‘til I’m done.”

His mouth gaped, and I saw flashes of his yellow teeth. It went white scar, pink lips, yellow teeth. White, pink, yellow. White, pink, yellow.

“Fuckin’... Why can’t I--”

“ _What_  did I say?”

Yellow. Tongue pink. Yellow... only white. 

“I’ve made some deals. I’m gonna find y’somethin’ t’walk on so that y’won’t rot in this place longer than need be."

He softened up sudddenly and almost smiled, showed yellow, but it wasn’t like a smile I had seen on him before. Not gross or distant or mocking... it was just there, without reservations. It made me feel ashamed that I couldn’t find it in me to smile back. 

“This is how things’ll be done from now on, until the foot comes in and y’can walk on it alright. I’ll feed ya. I’ll clean your wound if need be. And I’ll get y’yer foot... Then you’ll go.”

My honestly terrified him for the first than I had ever seen. He wanted to talk, that much I could tell, but he knew better than to interrupt me again. He stared, with his small mismatched eyes, and made a small choking sound in his throat. I knew what he meant to say without the words coming out.  _Where am I meant to go? What am I meant to do?_

_“_ What y’did t’me all this time, all these months... Y’ruined me. Y’hurt me. Y’never did nothin’ t’help me, t’make this better. I fuckin’ slaved over y’and others jus’like y’, and for what? T’get beaten int’ the fuckin’ dirt like I was less than human. I wasted m’time. D’ya hear me? D’ya hear the words comin’outta m’mouth? I won’t let my thoughts hide behind m’teeth no more. I’ll lay it out for y’, War Boy. Find work away from this place when y’can walk or I’ll find a way t’make y’go.”

I could tell in his face that he wanted to grab me and shake me again. His fists curled and twitched and his teeth were slowly being bared; his entire jaw shook with the effort it took to keep himself in control. I doubt there were very few times that he had been ordered about by someone half his size. It made me feel  _good_ , to see the way he folded under my words. 

“I wish I was fuckin’  _dead_.”

He was truly challenging me now. He was smug behind his beard and his long, greasy hair. And it pissed me off, how he thought he was better because he claimed he deserved the sweet release of some afterlife that he probably knew wasn’t even real. 

“Oh, yeah?” I asked. “And why is that?”

Slit pushed his hair back with his hand and turned his eyes away, down to his remaining, wriggling toes. 

“...I wasn’t born here. I was born from another place,” he said. 

“Wretched?  _You_?”

“ _Fuck_ , no. Not as mediocre as  _that._  Don’t remember what or where but... this  _place_. Lots of pups like me, runnin’ around, getting fed by whoever had enough Mother’s Milk to share. There was my breeder-parent I remember. She didn’t want to feed me because I came out ugly and small. Not worth a sale.”

Born from breeding stock, then. Not the worst existence in the world. Better than my sandy childhood, in some ways. 

“Lots of kids came from the breeder that made me. Lots of... whatever. They tossed us scraps and made us fight for everything. Food, milk, clothes. Made us tough early, which was good... once I got here, it wasn’t so bad. Hunger pains aren’t so bad once you’ve had ‘em for a long enough time.” 

He looked me up and down, and his eyes went away. He looked the way someone did when they stared in a piece of broken mirror glass for too long.

“Once I got big—well, big as  _you_ —I was sent away. And I got trained up. Got strong... and when I got bigger, we did this thing. Thing to the Wretched. Once a year. You know it... you know.”

I shuddered. I knew it. He knew I did. Wretched folk called it Killing Spring. I was never around for it- Maude always made sure we were long gone before it was even close to starting. That horror, I was spared, but I knew the effects of Killing Spring. Friends would be gone, and there would always be plenty to eat after we came back. 

“They told us to come back with heads. Only way to assure a kill. Said it was meant to blood us... the ones who couldn’t take it, they stayed with the Wretched and got killed the next year. We went down there in the night, with blades and bags, and we went absolutely  _fuckin_ _’_  kamicrazy.”

He swallowed hard and his ugly face went sour. 

“ _That cunt_  was there. The one that wouldn’t feed me. Bitch couldn’t pump out pups no more, came to the Wretched, not  _fuckin’_  knowin’ what was coming... And she  _recognized_  me. Because when I came at her, she tried to call me  _son._  She  _dared_  to  _fuckin’ call me son!”_

Spittle ran down his face, and he grossly wiped the moisture from his beard hair. He was suddenly absolutely winded, but he kept going nonetheless. He wanted me to hear everything, even in his rage.

“I jumped on her.  _I wanted her head_. But that fuckin’ psycho wanted to slice me up instead. She made me like this. I was bleeding and she was bleeding... but I didn’t stop until I looked down and saw her spine.”

His hand rose to his face, caught in the memory, and he rubbed his scarred cheeks.

“By that time... it was over. I had just sat there, staring at her, for hours. Other Boys, they had four, five, six heads. I had the only one. Which wasn’t enough. So when they asked why I just had the one, probably ready to see me start to blubber, or break... I told ‘em who she was. And I took the knife, with  _her blood on it,_ and I...”

He grinned at the face I had made, raised a finger, turned his face, and delicately drew his finger down the scar I had ripped open for him. Technically, I had ripped out more than one scar, hadn’t I?

“I killed the breeder that made me,” he said, dropping his hand, dropping his grin. “And all of that...  _for this_.”

He laid back down slowly as if to savor the gravity of his words. I had never seen him so pensive. It disturbed me, so I intervened.

I prodded him in the ribs with a sharp finger and gestured to my face when he growled. 

“Don’t be so ungrateful. ‘This’’s a breeder caring for ya, sunrise, sunset, and everythin’ in between. Sounds chrome to me.”

He huffed and shrugged, perhaps half pleased. 

“...’s not like you’ve got milk or anythin’ chrome like that,” he grumbled, but his eyes glimmered at me. He looked just like a hungry newborn pup. I struck him for that look. 

“ _No_ , I don’t. Asshole.”

“What’m I gonna do? After this? After I leave? No one’ll fuckin’ want me.”

I snorted. Prodded him again. 

“Stop bein’ dramatic,” I said. 

For some reason, I thought of Jericho.

“Y’do what everyone does. Ya cut yer palm, spit on it, take the infection... and go on with your day until y’forget how much the cut hurts.” 


End file.
